The art of customer experience optimisation

Customer experience optimisation

While the customer experience is all about the encounters a consumer has with a retail brand at each touchpoint on the purchasing journey, optimisation is about understanding the customer expectation and using that to inform a remarkable experience.

To put it another way, optimisation relies on data, insight and analytics and is the science of attracting, engaging and improving the customer experience.

In the process it draws on every technological tool you have available in your retail arsenal – from traffic counting to website analytics, product engagement and more.

How to optimize the customer experience

Optimising the customer experience starts with mapping the customer journey, and in today’s blend of online and real-world retail, that journey might take multiple paths.

However, in principle it revolves around the three stages of the buying journey: Awareness, consideration, purchase.

Awareness

Whether it’s a product someone sees on social media, something referred to them by their friends, or an item discovered in store, every purchase starts at the awareness phase.

And this awareness has two levels:

• The brand level, where customers know who you are, and
• The products and services you offer

Optimising awareness about both your brand and your products involves understanding where your customers come from and how they find out about you.

Key clues to this come from online analytics such as website traffic derived from sources such as social media, product searches, online advertising etc.

In store, it’s a little harder to determine but can be found in traffic counting, customer feedback, and also the success rate of advertising – for example, if you have a TV advertising promotion regarding a sale, and that results in a rise in foot traffic, or if you have a push notification and that sees increased sales of a certain product.

Consideration

The second stage of the customer journey is always consideration. This is the period where a consumer weighs the odds of purchasing a specific product.

Measuring consideration also takes multiple forms.

Both instore and online, measuring consideration is all about determining the time between discovery and purchase, and the factors that might be influencing a customer’s decision to purchase.

Measuring consideration includes looking at:

• Time spent on page
• Website traffic flow (where customers click through to on your site)
• Time spent instore
• Heat mapping (where customers spend time in your store)
• Products they engage with both online and instore

Purchase

The final stage of the customer journey is purchase, and optimising this area involves taking a good hard look at the barriers (or friction) that might be holding a customer back from buying an item.

These barriers could include:

• Slow web page speeds (online)
• Difficulty finding the product they seek (online and instore)
• Lack of payment options (online)
• Time spent in the queue (instore)
• Out of stocks (online and instore)

The final word

Optimizing the customer experience is all about providing a retail encounter that is frictionless, regardless of which channel or path the customer takes to find your store and purchase an item.

It encompasses both the online and instore experience and removes barriers to purchase by providing an encounter that is seamless and personalised.

You can view the products that facilitate an optimised customer experience instore here.