Canadian Retailer - Store 2016 - 52

SHOPPING JOURNEY INNOVATION

KEY ELEMENTS OF A CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY
Any customer engagement strategy needs to be personalized to cut through the rampant market noise in the sector.
Even when retailers successfully get onto a customer's radar, they must continue to focus on personalized engagement activities to strengthen the customer relationship.

Dialogue: Providing an
atmosphere where customers can engage with
a retailer or brand across
every stage of the shopping journey-influence,
transact and fulfill

Community: Creating and
fostering an engaging
virtual or live space where
people can exchange insights and thoughts about
a brand or products

What's the role of personalization within my business model and strategy?
The need for personalization will be different for
every retailer. In some retail subsectors, little personalization may be needed, while in others it will be a
requirement for future success. Each retailer needs to
look at their operations and determine how much a personalized experience matters to their consumers. From
there, they can determine whether or not they need to
enhance their current level of personalization.
What kind of personalization activities do I need?
Retailers need to look at their existing customer
strategy-including business objectives, target demographics and target customer behaviours-and determine what personalization activities can help them
achieve their desired outcomes. These initiatives could
range from creating a single customer identity that can
be used to track a customer across multiple shopping
channels and so enhance customer-focused offerings,
to using radio-frequency identification technologies,
beacons or interactive displays to engage with customers and answer questions or information requests in a
more personal way.
How can I help store associates foster customer
personalization?
One area retailers shouldn't overlook as they seek to
enhance customer personalization is the role of store
associates. Canadian consumers in particular value
sales associates with product knowledge as a part of
their in-store experience. For retailers looking to integrate more complex and interactive engagement tools,
educating sales associates about how, when and why to
use new technologies efficiently will be a core component of achieving success.
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CANADIAN RETAILER | STORE 2016

Offers: Offering curated
content (e.g. products,
information, coupons) attuned to customers' needs
that separates a retailer
from its competitors

Rewards: Providing loyalty or reward programs
that give consumers
incentives to take specific
actions (e.g. buy more
products, post to social
media, refer a friend)

How can I measure personalization?
To get the most return out of investments in personalization, retailers need to identify how they'll measure each activity undertaken so they can adjust their course as needed. To do
this, retailers need to define what customer relevance means
to them and the specific metrics they need to capture to accurately measure it. This could include establishing measures
to assess each component of the customer relevance triangle
(i.e. when, what and how). Metrics might include measures
both quantitative (e.g. traffic, conversion, customer response)
and qualitative (e.g. organizational learning, ability to tailor
offerings, encouraging new behaviours).
In today's business environment, innovation is a fact of life.
In no industry is this truer than in retail, where technologies
are being constantly introduced to enhance and better personalize shoppers' omni-channel shopping journeys. But innovation can come at a very high cost, especially if retailers move
forward without a concrete plan.
To increase personalization cost-effectively, Canadian retailers need to create a customer engagement strategy that's
highly relevant to their customers. By focusing on measuring the relevance of their engagement activities, retailers
will be able to make adjustments as needed. In a world where
change is the new normal, making personalization activities
adaptable will be instrumental to long-term success.
Ted Salter, a Partner in Retail Consulting with PwC, specializes in working with retail and consumer product companies
to develop and convert strategic plans into targeted business capabilities enabled through operating model transformations. Contact Ted Salter at (416) 814-5856 or ted.
salter@pwc.com. To download the Canadian Total Retail
2016 Report, visit www.pwc.com/ca/totalretail. To view
videos of Ted Salter talking about the Report, visit www.
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqzBuXsKycTVQNjpb8xF9Yb
WpnXcjpriW.

http://www.pwc.com/ca/totalretail http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqzBuXsKycTVQNjpb8xF9YbWpnXcjpriW

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