In this retail talk, we take a look at the post-purchase experience, asking ourselves, how to transform the post-transaction process into a valuable experience? What will make retailers successful and what should we be paying attention to when it comes to creating a strong relationship with shoppers.
The loyalty loop
“Many many retailers checkout at checkout. Everything that happens after the transaction is an afterthought”
Tobias Buxhoidt, Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer parcelLab
We tend to think of the customer journey as something linear, a sales funnel beginning with a first touchpoint and hopefully ending with a transaction, but in reality what we are looking at is a loop that ideally happens again and again. Tobias Buxhoidt believes that retailers should not quantify the success of their operations by looking at their sales funnel ending with a transaction, but rather view it as what he calls a loyalty loop.
How to create a circular buying journey
Caraway is amongst the fastest growing homeware stores across the USA. Nancy Gurd, Associate Director, Customer Experience at Carawar Home, explains that their success can be attributed to their ability to gather feedback from their clients and their ability to transform this feedback into action. In many cases growth comes with all departments being able to grasp what we call the VOC.
What is the VOC?
What we call VOC is the Voice of the Consumer. Nancy explains that a lot of their new products directly came from asks from their clients. From color choices, to types of cookware, their ability to listen to client demands is one of the central differentiating factors that can explain their rapid growth.
Customers want to engage
At Caraway Home, the voice of the customer doesn’t stop at getting feedback from customers and acting on it: it’s about allowing customers to engage in the first place. One of the key trends we noticed in the sales journey is that shoppers are really seeking information and involvement to some extent. Again, we should look at customer engagement as a non-linear journey where customers want to be listened to as much as retailers want to both educate and gather information about what their customers want in order to create a lasting bond.
Taking into account CSAT and NPS scores
At Caraway Home, one of the key measures that indicates if they are creating a loyalty loop is their CSAT and NPS scores. Their ability to adapt and change their strategies with those scores in mind will help them react fast to the changing trends and demands of their customers. According to Qualdrics, the business impacts of customer satisfaction is inevitably linked to a rise in revenue followed by a reduced cost of customer service.
What are CSAT and NPS score?
CSAT and NPS scores stand for Customer Satisfaction and Net promoter score. CSAT will usually be created by surveying customers on their percentage of satisfaction from a scale to 1-5. NPS score on the other hand, is the calculation of loyalty. Retailers sometimes gather this data by creating customer profiles, allowing them to see how many transactions have been made, or by implementing other types of satisfaction surveys into their sales journey. By being able to overlook these two measurements, retailers can have a great visibility on whether they succeeded in creating a virtuous cycle of customer loyalty.
Ways to engage
We looked at the importance of engaging with customers and gathering their feedback. But how can we implement more opportunities to engage when talking about a large scale strategy?
- Capture more opportunities to gather your customers’ email
Whether by adding pop-ups asking your website visitors to register to your newsletter, a conversational widget or by gathering this information at the cash register at the end of a transaction. - Add personalized services to your offer
By adding options for clients to take appointments, chat or send SMS to local specialists you can multiply the opportunities your shoppers can engage with the brand or branch. - Create customer profiles
By keeping track of preferences and past purchases, you will be able to get a better overview of the loyalty loop. - Create a strong reach out strategy
Make sure you engage on a regular basis with your consumer pool and allow them to give feedback by automating parts of the communication strategy. This will allow you to scale without compromising personalization.
With all these new opportunities to engage put in place, retailers will be able to gather critical data that will allow them to notice on a higher level if their current sales strategy is in line with the concept of a circular sales cycle (loyalty loop) in opposition to a sales funnel with potential higher acquisition costs.
In conclusion
We believe that retailers’ success will depend on their ability to adapt to consumer demands, which requires optimizing the customer journey—shifting from a traditional sales funnel approach to a loyalty loop mindset.
If you are interested in learning how Salesfloor can help you create a loyalty loop, don’t hesitate to reach out to our clienteling experts and get a free demo of our retail clienteling software.
