A lire sur: http://retailtouchpoints.tumblr.com/post/49799185671/customer-service-2-0-a-more-personalized-and
Just as the era of the brick-and-mortar retailer is evolving, so too is the concept of traditional customer service. Armed with more options, and in turn more power, consumers today are demanding that companies speak to them more directly and more personably.
By Rado Kotorov, Chief Innovation Officer at Information Builders
![](http://media.tumblr.com/2f96f6f8f20a2b54d454460e688a4dbd/tumblr_inline_mmeattiU481qz4rgp.png)
Just as the era of the brick-and-mortar retailer is evolving, so too is the concept of traditional customer service. Armed with more options, and in turn more power, consumers today are demanding that companies speak to them more directly and more personably.
So the question becomes not if retailers should tailor the customer experience, but how.
How do retailers attract consumers’ attention, and more importantly,
how do they retain it? The answer is two-fold: retailers must harness
existing customer data and embrace new technologies.
Customer Data Matters
With regard to customer data, there are two
questions that need to be addressed: (1) why data matters, and (2) which
data matters? The first question forces us to think about our learning
objectives. The second question makes us consider the data that we need
to collect in order to learn what we want to learn. Oftentimes we
collect more data than we need. It’s good that we collect it, as storage
is cheap and — in the same manner we tend to keep old items of clothing
or other personal items in our closets — you never know when it will be
useful. Let me get back to the why.
In our personal interactions with friends and
family we learn (1) from observations and (2) from conversations.
Observation helps us collect behavioral data about our friends. Conversations, on the other hand, help us understand why certain behaviors occur.
Similarly, transactional data gives us plenty of
opportunities to learn about customer behaviors – when people buy, what
they buy, and how much they buy.
But social media data has added a whole new
dimension. We can understand WHY customers do certain things. Why Anne,
who used to spend $300 on clothes every three months, spends less than
$50 now. Listening to the voice of the customer enables us to learn the causes behind observable behavior patterns.
Connecting behavioral patterns with causal
explanations gives retailers unprecedented opportunities to invent new
needs and wants, and grow both sales and customer satisfaction in the
process. Thus the next generation of retail business intelligence (BI)
will connect these data sources more closely, and apply analytical
techniques across both structured and unstructured data to connect
observed customer behavior with expressed customer feelings.
Emerging Customer Technologies
New customer interaction technologies are quickly
emerging. They have a dual purpose: (1) to have a ‘conversation’ with
the customer; and (2) to collect and analyze the data from the
‘conversation’ to refine the interactions.
For example, as Anne tries on
different dresses in the dressing room, the interactive technologies
record what she likes and does not like. The more we learn about why she
rejects what she tries, the more we know about Anne’s preferences, and
the more we understand why we lost a significant portion of her wallet.
This can have positive benefits for the customer, as well. Retailers
know that accessorizing increases total spending. Hence, interactive
suggestions of accessories create a personalized fashion advice
experience that many shoppers like.
The new interactive technologies will embed
real-time BI and advanced analytics to make the experience relevant and
natural. So what is next? What more can we add?
Imagine being able to bring your social friends
into the dressing room for advice. This now turns the shopping
experience into a completely social experience. How do you factor their
advice into the recommendations that your interactive system presents to
the shopper? How do you weigh the likes and dislikes?
The Facebook of retail will solve this problem.
Rado Kotorov is the Chief Innovation Officer at Information Builders, a provider of business intelligence (BI) and analytics, information integrity, and integration solutions.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire