The Hindu Business Line : Delivering a memorable customer experience

An important element in any retail model is to be able to deliver a memorable customer experience. In fact, the brand building of most retail chains happens at the customer’s home after shopping. There is a level of faith and trust reposed by t he customer in the retailer every time there is a transaction. This faith and trust is tested and it is either strengthened and deepened or the bond erodes and breaks down depending on the customer experiences – not only at the store but also at home.

For example, if you were purchasing an expensive LCD TV and the retailer promises to have the same installed the same day, then your faith and trust is either reinforced or eroded depending on whether you are enjoying the new LCD TV or screaming at the retailer’s staff for the pending installation.

This reality is true for almost every product category; the traditional grocers have made it their USP to leverage this and build a bond. Stories abound of how one can call the kirana and complain that something is not right and his boy would come with a replacement. One of the biggest challenges that any corporate retail chain faces is offering a personalised experience to its customers.

The fundamental truth that one needs to accept is that such personalised attention is not easy and definitely not cost effective for mass merchandise retailers. Even the best of CRM solutions requires exhaustive database maintenance and grassroots-level linking to enable personal care and attention. So, the obvious question is whether this cannot be countered and is the Achilles heel for corporate retail chains?

Most definitely it cannot be duplicated. But it can definitely be countered effectively. The trick is in redefining the rules of the game and creating new expectations in the customer’s mind with regard to experience. However, one word of caution: Trust is a function of expectations created and then met or ideally surpassed. One should never attempt to create expectations without having a delivery mechanism in place.

The reality with regard to retail customers is that their experience starts from and ends at their homes. It starts when they read about some offering that a retailer has advertised and his or her mind has already started to build expectations. The expectations are usually price- or value-led in the case of food and grocery, and range-led in the case of speciality. Therefore, these basic elements of differentiated assortment and offering better value is a default must-have in the store as they are often the key drivers of footfalls.

At the risk of sounding repetitive, the customer does not divorce the various experiences while shopping, including the journey to and from the shop. Is it any wonder that location is touted as the most important factor in retailing? However, a good location alone cannot deliver. Access to the store, traffic, parking, ease of finding the store, ease of leaving, risk of being fined for parking and a host of such issues determine whether the customer is having a good experience. Most customers would point out billing and the waiting time for it as the single biggest irritant in a self-service format. It is irrelevant that they have browsed inside the store for a long time!

So, how does one deliver this elusive experience which is positive and memorable?

First the retailer needs to define 360 degrees touch points, starting from the home and ending at a customer’s home. This could include communication such as advertisements, access to the store, parking, entry to the store, ease of movement inside the store, billing. Once this has been done, the ideal experience to be delivered needs to be defined and the elements that would help deliver the same are identified. Each of these elements needs to be constantly monitored and evaluated to ensure that the experience being delivered is in line with the plan and most importantly meets the expectations created in the customers mind.

Most importantly, these elements are continuously shifting goal posts and need constant alignment. A simple example is the number of car parking slots for a neighbourhood supermarket. In the mid-Nineties, three to four parking slots for cars were considered adequate. However, very soon this proved to be grossly inadequate and one of the worst experiences for customers is the parking problem. In fact, there are many people who either don’t frequent or have stopped going to a store because of this sole reason.

Triggering the senses

One of corporate retail’s open secrets is the extensive use of triggers to a customer’s sensory perception in order to influence his or her shopping. Use of colours is one such play. A good example is the use of red for promotions, as this is supposed to increase the heart beat and create a sense of urgency. Green is used to communicate freshness and create a sense of calm in the customer’s mind. Lighting, display of products and various pictures on the wall further add to these influences. Music is another element. Faster music is supposed to make customers shop more.

But then a lot of the abovementioned things can be copied or even bettered by competition, and then what?

That’s why the core element of service and customer interface is so crucial in creating the memorable experience.

The reality is that different customers require different levels and kinds of service. A housewife doing relaxed browsing needs greater inputs and maybe some conversation too, whereas a working woman needs precise inputs and speed in the transaction. This is the tricky part as most of us play different customer types depending on our context and time availability. When buying a simple product like a hand blender, I just want to see various models and price points … whereas if I am evaluating an LCD TV, the expectations are completely different. Training the store staff to be able to understand, differentiate and structure their service interaction accordingly is a huge challenge and one that is definitely worth investing in for long-term benefits.

Last is the role of creating an emotional connect. We all fall for positive strokes and emotional tugs. The pleasure is greater when it is a surprise and therefore becomes memorable. In fact, this has been validated by studies. Giving or doing something special after announcing it definitely diminishes the benefit as an expectation has been created and if that is not met, the intent of such an activity is lost.

I get loads of e-mails from most service providers on my birthday offering a special birthday ‘gift’. It is so patently commercial that nowadays I don’t even bother to open these mails. However, last year I got a greeting card which had been customised with my name and I still cherish that.

In the retail context, events play a huge role in creating this emotional connect. In the initial years of corporate supermarkets, the store would celebrate festivals and occasions such as Father’s Day or Christmas with a variety of interesting activities. One of the most enduring images in my mind is from a Father’s Day celebration. One child ran into the store at close to 9 p.m. and requested that we delay the start of the competition as his father had just returned from work. The other participants most readily agreed. After everyone had assembled the father-child duos made paper planes and threw them at each other – outside the store in the forecourt, at around 9.30 pm on a working day. The passersby stopped to see, while the participants were blissfully lost in this memorable experience. In Chennai, this was an almost unheard-of thing and I am sure any reader who has participated or seen such events will feel the memories come flooding back.

The writer is a retail professional with extensive multi-format exposure in India and has been a part of the team that pioneered organised retail in India. The URL of his blog, ‘An Indian & A Retailer’, is http://v-rajesh.blogspot.com

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