Importance of Training the Sales Associate in an Omnichannel World
We know that omnichannel is about creating great experiences for consumers and using intelligent customer identification tactics to make those experiences more personal. We know that customer identification is increased by complementing physical experiences with digital touchpoints that shoppers expect, but how can we accomplish that? How can we be sure we are creating a consistent experience across our online and offline environments when the mobile experience is valued the same as a conversation with a sales associate to the shopper?
One of the best ways to accomplish this is to provide store associates with the tools and training they need to provide a seamless omnichannel experience for each potential customer. Store associates are the face of the physical environment and they are the first line of defense when it comes to establishing human connections that build trust and form relationships that drive customer lifetime value.
Not only do associates provide the human connection we all crave, but when properly trained and informed, they can troubleshoot technological issues and address shortcomings, provide insight into products and availability, and act as a concierge to the experience as a whole. They make sure the store experience remains as convenient as possible for the shopper.
In a report released earlier this year, Retail Systems Research noted that the highest performing retailers have taken advantage of the opportunity to provide more personalized attention and service from employees by arming them with tools that elevate their usefulness. To make associates more useful, they need better tools and training to keep up with the new, mobile consumer.
“Without equivocation, a motivated and powerfully-informed workforce will be a vital component to any successful omni-channel experience going forward.”
— Retail Systems Research, “Commerce Convergence: Closing the Gap Between Online and In-Store”
We know these efforts can sound daunting for many retailers. Working to get each employee up to speed on every piece of technology sounds time-consuming, expensive, and may not seem worth it. But the fact is that high-caliber associates and simple in-store technologies are necessities in the connected omnichannel world. Without effective in-store teams, there is a rift in the online/offline dichotomy and the entire process breaks down. By making sure the customer experience is harmonious from end to end, you’ll see your omnichannel strategy come to life in a big way.
How In-Store Remarketing Empowers Retailers’ Omnichannel Strategies
Online remarketing continues to be one of the best performing channels for retailers. That fact is only increasing, given that so many shoppers begin researching their next potential purchase on their mobile devices, before setting foot in a store. But the use of these same tactics applied once inside physical store and afterward, is still an early and critical opportunity. Does the use of the word critical seem sensationalist? Not when you realize that $0.64 of every dollar of physical store sales is affected by digital and growing.
The best online remarketing strategies look at far more than the last product browsed. Online retailers are well versed at collecting deep and meaningful data from website visitors – unique and return visits, dwell time, pathing, number of products engaged with at what depth and frequency - whether or not they’ve already gone to one of their retail stores - and then remarketing to the shopper based on their browsing history and related behaviors. In order to open similar opportunities for digitally remarketing to store customers, corollary data capture in the store environment should be the goal.
Driving omnichannel success with in-store remarketing is based on this fact: If retailers are going to use data modeling and ecommerce to drive more sales inside their physical environments, their on-site digital experiences must take advantage of all the unique intent data the physical store has to offer. And there is plenty of it.
In order to remarket intelligently to store customers, like online, retailers should implement interactive technology in their stores to get real-time information about how, and why their customers behave the ways they do inside their stores. Armed with those insights, retailers can take actions to provide better experiences — that delight shoppers, leads to more sales, at and after the store experience. Not only are retailers creating a good store customer experience that can lead to a transaction then and there, they’re also building a relationship that encourages customer lifetime value, blending the online and offline dichotomy.
If in-store technologies can measure the frequency and effectiveness of interactions between sales associates and shoppers, that may tell retailers how to adjust training incentives and deployment of sales staff to increase their efficiency, helpfulness and productivity. Additionally, it’s possible to know that those customers are more likely to buy if remarketed to digitally. If retailers can track where shoppers go inside of a retail store, how often they go there, and how long they linger in certain spots, there is an opportunity to shift a floor plan to promote special items, expose visitors to more products, and target cross-channel selling. Retailers are then able to determine what to focus on with personalized messaging to engage appropriately with remarketing.
If retailers want to truly shape and own the in-store digital and mobile experience, stores should take a page from their online counterparts and develop these kinds of in-store data collection and analytics capabilities. Since this yields concrete, useful metrics tied to real-world, in-person shopping as well as intelligent digital media strategy, retailers can readily see the value of investing in these resources.
Being able to gather and interpret information about in-store shopper traffic and activity as it’s happening – when people are actually entering, browsing, and leaving the premises – will tell store managers and owners how to merchandise their goods and remarket their business to turn more in-store shoppers into buyers. Retailers who exploit these digital touch points to glean intelligence on store visitor habits, and apply customer-friendly lessons learned from that data, give consumers a powerful incentive to spend money in their stores.
What Is In-Store Remarketing?
In-Store Remarketing: Remarketing done online to customers who have walk into a physical store and do not make a purchase.
In online marketing, the fastest way to increase sales is through remarketing to shoppers who have considered products, but didn’t buy. Yet, for most retailers, online represents only 10% of their sales and 90% of all retail sales still happen in the physical store.
One of the reasons we talked about customer identification in depth over the past month is because having in-store customer identifiers is the key to a successful in-store remarketing campaign. Having an email address as an offline customer identifier is extremely powerful to power In-Store Remarketing.
There have been massive innovations in digital and mobile technology that have given retail stores many issues and are having trouble finding viable solutions. In-Store Remarketing gives omnichannel marketers the opportunity to move ahead of the curve in a fast-paced digital age.
Pillars of In-Store Remarketing
Creating Continuous Customer Experiences
One of the biggest problems omnichannel marketers face today is the fragmentation of their experiences in the online and offline world. In a world where all shoppers are starting their research on their mobile devices, making sure that shoppers are getting the information they need when they need it is a critical first step.
When it comes to In-Store Remarketing, there are countless times when shoppers have been in a store, seen a product they are considering to buy, then walk out of store. Are omnichannel marketers equipped when that shopper goes online later and purchases that item, but in a different color? Being able to providing a great in-store experience can lead to another online touchpoint that can drive to a potential sale.
Collecting Customer Data in the Store (While Maintaining Customer Trust)
Going back to the stat that 90% of all retail sales still take place in the store, there are incredible opportunities for retailers to take advantage of technology to drive omnichannel sales. Online, marketers have done an incredible job of innovating and optimizing their e-commerce strategies to collect the right data to make better decisions. However, we are very much the early days when it comes to collecting offline customer data and using it to inform business decisions. In-Store Remarketing effectively places a digital layer in the physical store and has powerful ripple effects in a retailers omnichannel strategy.
With all of this opportunity in retail, it is incredibly important to design and build programs in place with consumer trust being top of mind. Customers understand online marketing and are aware of the information that they give out is relative to the value they receive from a retailer. When this data collection starts happening in the store, customers will become more aware and sensitive to the information they are providing in the store and will be less prone to do that if retailers are not providing enough value in the store.
Driving Insight Into Online/Offline Attribution
As mobile device usage and e-commerce are growing at a rapid pace, there has been more stress placed on store managers and associates getting people to make a purchase in the store. Traditionally, there haven’t been complementary metrics that measure store engagement relative to the online world. Closing the loop on multichannel attribution has been an issue for marketers, and now the data and technology is there to make that become a reality.
With In-Store Remarketing, the physical store is able to properly show its influence in a retailer’s omnichannel landscape. From store engagement metrics to store associate attribution, store employees can provide better experiences to customers without the fear of missing out on a sale or not getting credit for their efforts.
POV: Why Facebook Has An Opportunity to Own Omnichannel Marketing
Over the past month, we’ve been extensively covering customer identification in retail. As we look around the omnichannel landscape, retailers are having a hard time having a true omnichannel experience. While there are tons of technology companies that have specialized in creating solutions ranging from customer experience to point-of-sale, Facebook could disrupt the omnichannel space in a way that would be tough to compete with over time.
Here are three reasons why Facebook could disrupt the retail space:
Identity & Scale
Facebook simply has a reach across the Internet that cannot be matched. With 1.5 billion people on the social network and almost 1 billion of them are checking Facebook every single day. What makes this extremely powerful is that each person’s profile is filled out and accurate and serves as a strong identifier compared to others used online. Facebook has done an incredible job of extending their reach online with the creation of Facebook Connect and it being used to sign-in to many popular apps and websites. If Facebook decides to move deeper into the retail space, having Facebook ID’s layered into the omnichannel experience can provide a whole new set of data for retailers.
Attribution
The implications of taking Facebook’s social data and applying it to the physical store is immensely powerful. One of the biggest implications of using that data is in a product that is gaining significant momentum at Facebook. Atlas, the ad network Facebook bought from Microsoft a few years ago, has been rebuilt to challenge online heavyweights like Google and Twitter. Combining Facebook’s massive user base with the ability to track people across devices and attribute offline sales to online ad campaigns is something that many marketers have tried to crack but have had difficulty doing due to limits of the technology in place. Atlas gives omnichannel marketers much greater insight into their online advertising campaigns and the business results that marketers are held to achieving for their brand.
Beacons
Facebook recently launched a beacon program, which allows retailers to order beacons with the intention of engaging with shoppers when they are in the store. The beacons provide businesses the ability to engage and personalize with people who visit a business within the Facebook app and provide tips and recommendations from friends in their social graph.
While this might not seem like that big of a deal, they are quietly testing these beacons and could make a serious play with the evolution of the physical store. Using that treasure trove of social data, whether to share content or promote offers is compelling for retailers to implement in their stores. Imagine Atlas connecting the in-store engagement data with beacons to the anonymized person and matching their mobile device usage to their interactions to advertisements.
Facebook has done a great job in its mission of connecting the world and bringing people closer together. Now that it has the identity and scale to reach people anytime, anywhere, it can start diving into to industries that are ripe to disruption. Omnichannel marketers need to pay close attention to Facebook in the coming years and should be aware and keeping pace and innovation of relevant advertising and multichannel attribution.
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