Retail Customer Experience Trends 2023 & Strategy (GUIDE)

Retailers who are thriving in tough economic times have realised their stores provide a brand experience. Therefore, it is so important for the basics to be ‘invisible’ to the customer – queues at tills, cumbersome loyalty sign ups and stock availability problems do not have a place in the new ‘phygital’ customer experience. Retailers who have embraced a new generation of tech have eradicated these frictions and freed up their associates to truly focus on the customers.

4 Customer Experience Trends You Should Watch:

Let’s explore 4 ways that are proven to help retailers power up the retail customer experience deliver for store associates, customers, and retailers’ bottom line.

1. Turn the point of sale into a mobile point of service

Mobile is having a major impact on in-store sales. According to an IHL Group study, companies whose staff used mobile sales tools saw a 77% percent higher sales growth. Mobile POS continues to play a lead role in today’s shopping experience, not only for the customer, but the store associate too.

To drive sales revenue, increase customer loyalty and remain competitive, retailers must empower their store associates with a complete mobile POS solution that enables them to access accurate customer data, gain a single view of inventory and execute key omnichannel services like Endless Aisle and Ship from Store.

2. Raise the bar on loyalty with hyper personalisation

Personalised shopping experiences are crucial in attracting customers and retaining their loyalty. According to Epsilon, 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase from brands that offer a personalised and consistent shopping experience, however and wherever they chose to shop.

CRM and Clienteling is an opportunity for retailers to empower their store associates with advanced customer insights that enable them to build tailored connections with their customers and keep them coming back to stores.

3. Gain a single, real-time view of inventory

A single, real-time view of inventory is the lifeblood for retailers. Customers expect products to be available when and where you say they are, if not, they will go elsewhere. According to ERC Europe, 30% of consumers feel stockouts hurt their shopping experience. Some 69% will choose a substitute item after a first stockout occurrence, but after experiencing three of them, 70% of shoppers will go to another brand entirely.

4. Every other point starts with a strong stat

The role of stores has become multifaceted. They are now delivering innovative brand experiences, they act as fulfilment hubs, they’re a place for online returns, click & collect points and more! New customer-facing tech along with business-as-usual updates, critical training and maintenance tasks, can make compliance audits extremely complex.

This complexity has meant that stores have increasing to-do lists and tasks to deliver for departments across retailers’ HQs and these are communicated to stores via emails, individual software portals, apps like WhatsApp and even paper checklists.

Simplify communication with your stores and ensure your associates are ‘in the know’ with an intuitive retail operations app that saves time and makes life easier for store teams and retail management teams

Final Thoughts on 2023 CX Trends: How to implement them in your strategy

Personalisation will remain a key to customer loyalty, and a human connection will become more important. Finally, customers expect brands to provide them with an omnichannel experience that is frictionless and consistent from channel to channel.

Cegid Retail is a global, cloud based POS andunified commerce platform that’s live in 85,000 stores worldwide. Cegid Retail can help you:

• Gain a single view of inventory, customer and sales data across the enterprise
• Deploy services like click & collect, endless aisle and ship from store quickly and efficiently
• Empower store associates with full omnichannel sales capability on any mobile and fixed POS devices across all OS (Android, iOS & Windows)
• Access a portfolio of dashboards & reportsfor real-time insights. No batch polling!
• Deliver a personalised shopping experienceand build lasting loyalty with clienteling

Learn how to implement those customer experience trends in your strategy by downloading our guide.