The future of customer experience

In a market saturated by choice, where ecommerce sales are beginning to slow across the board and an air of cautiousness over the political and economic outlook is tightening spending across the sector, retailers are having to fight harder than ever before to win share of the consumer wallet.

As a result, customer experience has emerged as the key strategic battleground as retailers try to give their customers a reason to choose them over the competition. 

Retailers are vying to differentiate their businesses and give consumers a reason to keep coming back to their websites and stores in an age where brand loyalty is harder to come by.

The market is now in transition, as retailers adopt new strategies in order to transform into truly customer-centric organisations.

This evolution has implications for every part of a retailer’s business, from customer-facing stores and websites through to back-office functions such as human resources, and the supply chain, aim to drive the greatest return on investment.

In this four-part podcast series, produced in association with Oracle, we take a deep-dive into the world of customer experience.

We will hear from businesses including Kingfisher, Missguided, Schuh, Mountain Warehouse, Jigsaw and Amara, alongside Oracle, about what a customer-centric strategy should look like, with practical steps on how to put this into practice.

Online sales are forecast to slow to single-digit growth this year for the first time – to 9% according to the IMRG Capgemini E-Retail Sales Index.

A Retail Week survey of 2,000 UK consumers in December found shoppers feel more negative than positive about the year ahead in five out of six measures – personal finance, general economy, political situation, job security and cost of living.

With such a challenging backdrop, offering an unbeatable customer experience is going to be essential to the future success of retail businesses.

Listen to episode one in our podcast series – Customer experience: why it matters – where you will hear expert strategic insight from Jigsaw chief executive Peter Ruis, consultant and former T2 international director Darren Williams, Missguided head of brand Samantha Helligsø and Oracle director of retail and consumer goods Peter Bambridge.

This requires new skillsets – whether that involves retraining existing staff or recruiting externally – and ensuring this new customer-centric mindset is adopted by the whole business.

During the past few years, the chief customer officer has become a c-suite role in many retailers, driving customer experience from the top.

A c-suite survey by recruitment firm Oresa Executive Search in 2016 found that 56% of respondents believed chief customer officers would be the chief executives of tomorrow and that, while 60% at the time said there was already a need for a chief customer officer, 90% thought this would increase in the future.

However, as retailers become more customer-centric in everything they do will the role always be relevant?

And as customer experience has become central to retail strategy, what does this mean for wider recruitment and talent?

Listen to episode two – Creating a customer-centric organisation, where you will hear from Andy Harding, chief executive of stock photography company Alamy, and himself one of the first high-profile chief customer officer appointments in 2015 for House of Fraser; Maddie Melson, chief customer officer at luxury homewares retailer Amara; and Andy Campbell, HCM strategy director at Oracle.

A nationally representative study of 2,000 UK consumers conducted by Retail Week in November paints a vivid picture of the effect a bad delivery experience will have on a shopper.

We found that 38% may shop with a retailer again after a bad delivery experience, but have an even higher service expectation as a result; 36% would leave a bad review on a retailer’s website; 35% would tell their friends; and 19% would never shop with that retailer again.

So the risk to reputation and trading performance for retailers is very real. As a result, investment in this area is crucial.

But what does great experience look like in the final mile? And what do retailers need to do behind the scenes to make it happen?

These are some of the questions we seek to answer in episode three – The customer and the final mile – where you will hear expert opinion from Lindsay Haselhurst, director of global supply chain at Kingfisher; Kieran Donovan, head of supply chain at Mountain Warehouse; Emma Dempsey, chief operating officer, and Peter Louden, business solutions director at logistics firm Clipper; and Antony Welfare, retail sales development director at Oracle.

Any retail business has a whole shopping list of potential investments, all vying for the all-important green light. So how do retailers choose where, when and how to invest?

In episode four – The power of customer experience to drive return on investment – we talk to Sean McKee, director of ecommerce and customer experience at Schuh; Peter Ruis, chief executive at Jigsaw; Andy Harding, chief executive at Alamy; and Alan Brookes, sales director at Oracle, to find out which areas they believe drive the greatest return on investment and what retailers’ transformation road maps should look like.

PARTNER COMMENT

In an increasingly competitive marketplace, retailers are constantly challenged to find new ways to encourage shoppers to part with their hard-earned cash.

Consumers today demand a shopping experience that allows them to make their purchases how and when they want to; and it is this personalised shopping experience they use as the benchmark for which brand they will spend with.

With this in mind, delivering a bespoke and unique experience to each and every shopper is now a brand imperative.

Retailers must put customer experience front and centre in every aspect of their strategy if they want to succeed.

They need to ensure that each and every interaction with a customer is tailored to their particular wants and needs.

If they don’t do this they run the risk of shoppers going to their competitors and spending their money there.

On top of this, retailers need to think about how they make their customer experience strategy commercially viable.

Making large-scale investments in new and exciting experiences may help increase the volume of shoppers, but they need to also be lucrative and ensure the investment does not outweigh the money consumers spend.

Treading the tightrope of providing customers with a personalised service while also delivering a return on the investment is one of the greatest challenges retailers face today.

Our podcast series will look at how retailers can implement strategies to strike a balance between the two and ensure their continued success in a complex and competitive marketplace.

Antony Welfare, retail sales development manager, Oracle

The future of customer experience
What every retailer needs to know

Written and recorded by James Knowles
Podcast editing by Roland Bodenham
Produced by Dan Harder and Emily Kearns
In partnership with Oracle