Much is said today about the huge impact of Customer Experience on the results of sales in the store. It is worth explaining what is behind this term.
In the common sense, Customer Experience is customer opinion about the brand, which is a consequence of previous experience with it. A good opinion about the brand increases the chances of changing the client from one-time into the recurring and later into regular.
The two basic components of Customer Experience are perception and interaction. The interaction is made between the customer and the store. The Customer Experience is formed by many elements such as price, service, availability or interaction with the salesperson. While writing about perception, it is worth mentioning three levels on which human cognition functions – cognitive, behavioral and emotional. Cognitive refers to facts, for example, price list and waiting time for service, behavioral – the impact of an event on behavior and emotional is a subjective assessment of the event, accompanying people virtually always, often subconsciously. Positive emotional assessment is often more important than cognitive because it is stored longer in memory and leaves a stronger mark there. Therefore, more important than what the store offers to its recipients can be how it makes it.
Customer service can be described as one of the Customer Experience components. Customer service can be defined as the support provided by a company to customers who are facing issues while purchasing or using its products or services. Customer experience is the overall perception of a brand as a result of comprehensive interactions throughout the buyer’s journey.
Customer service is reactive and it only comes into play when a dissatisfied customer contacts the company. Customer Experience is proactive – designing shopping experience so that the customer is satisfied and positively perceived our brand.
Just as Customer Service focuses on specific interaction at a given time, Customer Experience takes into account the entire shopping experience, thus building long-term relationships with customers. To build a positive experience, you need to take into account all the stages the customer is going through – both before, during and after the purchase.
At a time when competing brands offer products that are similar in price and quality, Customer Experience can be a decisive factor in choosing a particular brand. The modern customers knows a lot about the company, is resistant to marketing tricks and can’t be fooled by advertising. Nowadays shopping is preceded by a precise research to get as much information as possible about the seller and his offer. Switching brands comes with great ease. Any negative experience in the purchasing process will quickly translate into negative perception of the brand, which is why the Customer Experience plays so important role.
The employees in the store are the brand ambassadors. If they are uninformed or dissatisfied, customers will certainly notice this. When the customer, after crossing the threshold of the store, sees salespeople talking to each other, staring at the screen of the smartphone and not paying attention to him, certainly will quickly develop a negative opinion about the brand. Meanwhile, crossing the threshold of the store is the moment when we should start building customer engagement. A warm welcome alone can give the client the impression that someone is interested in him and influence further decisions. It is at this moment that the process of building Customer Experience begins.
To increase sales in our store, it is worth designing such a shopping experience that will give us an advantage over the competition. When we manage to do this, our product will be a nice souvenir after this experience and many customers would be willing to go through it again.
18.04.2024
For e-commerce, brick-and-mortar stores serve as a way to increase their visibility and offer a richer shopping experience within an omnichannel sales approach.
