Enhancing retail customer experience using data enrichment

Over the years, retailers have worked hard at developing and evolving store expansion, maintenance, and operations strategies to deliver the best possible customer experience. From locating high footfall areas to consumer demographics, a lot has gone into transforming retail into the mammoth industry it is. And yet, the last few years have seen a retail apocalypse at the hands of e-commerce. Store shutdowns included high-end brands like JCPenney, RadioShack, Macy's, Michael Kors, and Toys R Us among others. E-commerce brands like Amazon and Flipkart continue to cannibalize retail market shares, even more so in the face of the pandemic where the most traditional customers discovered the conveniences of online shopping. 

What e-commerce has that physical stores continue to grapple with - new age customer experience

According to KPMG's Global Online Consumer Report, the top reasons customers cite for online shopping are convenience and customer experience. Over 50% of respondents cited convenience and ease of selection as the key drivers for shopping online. You have search bars, navigation is easy, categories are easy to skim through, and discounts are somehow almost always personalized. Now, compare this with the hiking event that is visiting an Ikea store or a multi-floor apparel store in your city and you know what offline retail is missing. It is missing deep consumer insights that help make shopping convenient, quick, and enjoyable.

If offline retail wants to continue to thrive in 2021 and beyond even as more and more customers discover the convenience of online shopping, it needs to urgently adopt an insight-heavy approach to understanding customer needs and the specific experiences they look for in their shopping outings. This is where data enrichment comes to the rescue.

Data enrichment applies a new layer of O2O consumer insights over existing CRM data in order to enhance the retail brand's understanding of its existing and potential customers. Consumer data enrichment opens a whole new world of insights for retail brands - who are these consumers, what their likes and dislikes are, their purchase triggers and barriers, and key moments in their customer journeys. These holistic insights make each brand touchpoint - online and offline - that much more valuable and personalized. Alternative data enrichment directly translates to more informed decision making on the brand's part, better customer experiences and eventually, stronger marketing and business outcomes. Data enrichment is helping brands dive deep into valuable consumer insight. This is exactly why data enrichment forms the cornerstone of Factori's martech offerings - and the marketing ecosystem has welcomed these innovations with arms wide open!

The magic of data enrichment - personalizing, optimizing, and measurement

There are many factors that affect how retail stores are organized, staffed, and managed. Data enrichment is helping physical store brands understand their store footfall trends and customer needs better to enhance their advertising strategy, in-store experience, and give them an experience that is not just time-efficient but also convenient and great for business. 

When retailers have an insight into specifics that dive deep, they are able to not only deliver contextual messages and promotions that result in purchases, they are also able to make far more long-term, strategic, and data-centric marketing, operations, and business decisions. 

High ROI on sale events and peak shopping seasons

Going beyond business as usual, insights from previous sale events and peak shopping periods like festivals and wedding season can prepare retail brands to cater personalized, high impact in-store experience to maximize sales. Data enrichment powered identity resolution reveals the profiles of customers who walk in to your store during these periods and the categories they are most interested in and are most likely to spend money and time on. These insights prepare brands to not only tailor their promotions for individual needs but also set up their store for the best in-store experience and hence, higher sales and return customers.

Looking forward 

Amidst all these changes and uncertainty, one thing is clear. The retail landscape today is dramatically different from what it was just five years ago. The dynamics of the store-consumer relationship has turned on its head. The choice and access consumers have today is truly unprecedented. For a consumer, shopping is no longer about walking into a store and buying what is in store. Rather, consumers now know exactly what they want and then find a store - online or offline - that can sell it to them. The level of personalisation that every consumer expects - and is now used to - is unprecedented in history.

Customer experience and deep consumer insights have always been the bedrock of success in retail. With Factori's Data Enrichment solution, we are taking these bedrocks a notch higher. If you imagine your brand to be truly customer-obsessed, your insights need to evolve too. It's time for a data-led revolution in in-store experience and promotions. Are you ready for it? Because we know we are.

Request a demo to find out more.