Newsletter

Your Customers "Want You to Know Them"

2009 forced retailers to get creative in order to maintain online sales in the face of declining consumer confidence and the corresponding downturn in spending. It made us take a look at ways to turn onetime buyers into repeat purchasers, and to figure out how to extract a larger share of wallet from an increasingly cautious customer base. There is no one answer to these issues, but a great place to start is to make your interactions meaningful across multiple channels and at every touch point. According to the June 2009 e-tailing group report on personalization, over 76 percent of respondents said they both wanted and expected retailers to know something about them, and would buy more if interactions with retailers and manufacturers were personalized.

You’re probably thinking this isn’t a revelation at all, and that Personal Shoppers aren’t even close to a new phenomenon. What’s new is that the technology to build out the knowledge and function of an interactive personal shopper now exists online. Serving up content that is tailored to each individual shopper is proven to generate more sales, convert more traffic, and to increase customer loyalty. Over the years, a few key principles have guided our thinking:

    • Know as much as you can about your customer.
    • Know as much as you can about your inventory.
    • Bring the two together...wherever they are.
    • Sell more.

Question is, how does one do this in the new world, where consumers are interacting with us online, in email, via mobile, in the call center, and even with those who still want to come in to your brick-and-mortar stores?

The key is to start building profiles about each of your customers, capturing information about their interests, preferences, spending biases, purchase patterns, attributes, transactions – everything that helps you better understand the individual. The deeper the profile, the more targeted and effective you can be. Additionally be aware of every merchandising event, across every channel, and reach out proactively to your consumers with relevant offers tied to each.

The key to all of these interactions is that they’re predicated on you understanding the individual – knowing their profile. And second, you’re interacting with them across the most appropriate channel, wherever that consumer is most likely to shop, or to respond to offers, at the most appropriate time. It will bring your shoppers back to your store, it will increase customer loyalty, and it will give you a nice sustainable boost in sales throughout the year.