I’m a big fan of Gallup, a global analytics and advice firm that specialises in helping leaders to get the most out of their teams. They talk frequently about the challenges all retailers are facing with keeping their teams safe, engaged and motivated with all that is going on. Recently, they also discussed the challenges of keeping customers engaged and motivated to buy and return.
The choice for customers has never been so great, with competition for the share of their focus and dollars continually intensifying. While retailers focus on marketing to bring in more customers, it is essential to look at ways to retain existing customers and reap the benefits of having them return more often. One way to achieve this is to better engage with these existing customers, but how?
Gallup found that fully engaged customers represented a 23% premium in share of wallet, profitability, revenue and relationship growth over the average customer. So, engagement absolutely matters and they found six key areas that businesses should focus on to become truly customer centric:
1) Know your customers – what is happening in their world? How are they being impacted? Set up ways to find out this information as it’s like gold.
2) Design engaging experiences – focus relentlessly on how your team can create an amazing experience across all platforms.
3) Enable your workforce – empower and give them the freedom to allow them to engage with customers to create these great experiences. Work hard to remove any roadblocks that stop your team from engaging with customers.
4) Empower your customer impact teams – provide them with tools and process to get the job done and deal with issues promptly.
5) Deliver high standards of service – consistently across all channels, every single time.
6) Retain and grow the customer base and market – by doing all of the 5 steps above consistently.
How well do you and your team deliver on these critical steps?
Roger Simpson – CEO, The Retail Solution and Author of “The Ultimate Retail Sales Experience” With over 35 years’ industry experience, Roger Simpson is recognized as Australia’s #1 Authority on customer ROI in the retail industry and as a global expert on staff coaching, customer service, and selling skills.
