We live in a hyper-connected digital world where with just a few simple clicks, millions of products can be delivered to you within hours. Digital retail has pushed the edge of convenience and instant gratification to the point that some argue we are isolating ourselves so that leaving our homes is no longer required to meet our basic human needs. Okay, that may be a stretch, but you get the idea. It therefore begs the question: will brick-and-mortar retail locations eventually cease to exist?
Turns out though, we’re not that willing to give up our need for human connection. And that’s a good thing for retailers. People still want to come into your store, interact with friendly, helpful, knowledgeable associates and experience your products for themselves in a shopping experience that leaves them feeling better than when they entered your store. Yes, where retail locations used to be mostly transactional, they are now sought out for the experiences they provide. Customers view their online and offline interactions with you as one brand experience so a consistent omni-channel experience no matter where they stop and shop is expected.
Sephora is a leading beauty retailer that has figured this out. Their online BeautyTalk community as well as retail locations allow shoppers to learn about and explore products before (and while) they come in to the store to try beauty products with experts. The experience of selecting and buying beauty products is not just about tossing some make-up items into your hand basket at the drug store and paying for it at the counter. Instead, Sephora creates human connection and intimacy with its customers both online and offline, where customers discover their own beauty and see themselves in new ways that they wouldn’t otherwise if they did not try out the products and receive guidance from experts and people like them in a fun and supportive environment.
The majority of reasons we shop are not to meet basic survival needs, but to fulfill a need to express ourselves, learn about ourselves, reinvent ourselves, connect with people that are like us and make choices that make us feel unique and special.
It’s about the feeling we get, not the transaction or even the product itself.
And this is where a Total Community approach can help you bridge the digital and in store experiences together to create a customer experience that makes people feel good.
So what is Total Community? It’s an approach that leverages every person in your brand’s total community, i.e. whoever is connected to your company – whether it is customers, internal experts, or external influencers – to provide the advice, answers and solutions that customers need right when they need it. For example, suppose that Kristina finds a product she’s interested in buying online while perusing your website or community and has a question. She can search the community Q&As or if she doesn’t readily find an answer there, she can either sign up for the community and ask the community for advice or contact your customer service. (But who really wants to call customer service? That’s a last resort.) If she asks in the community and peers do not respond, your brand’s community manager would step in and respond, pointing her either to user-generated content within the community that addresses her question OR notify an internal expert or influencer that has the expertise to respond. By asking in the community, Kristina’s question is answered either by peers, the brand’s community manager or an expert. The Total Community came to help Kristina.
So, Kristina gets her question answered promptly, is introduced to the vast wealth of information and peers in your brand’s community and is impressed that someone within your company would take the time to answer her question. She leaves this interaction feeling cared for.
But let’s say Kristina is in your store, she has the product in her hand and needs her question answered. Chances are before she tracks down a store associate, she’ll go online to look for an answer, and if you have a thriving community that is pulling great SEO responses in search engines (communities are great at that!), chances are she’ll find an article from an expert in your community. If she can’t find an answer online, she’ll find an associate to ask and expect that the associate will have the solution.
This is where it becomes critical that you empower your frontline employees with the expertise they need or access to the experts within the company who can provide answers fast. We’ve all had the experience of asking an associate a question, only to have him or her go to the company website and find the same information (but not more!) than what we found ourselves. We mutter “well, I could have done that” under our polite “thank you for your help”. This is not enough to create the experience the customer expects. Total Community connects your employees to the internal experts so that they have the power to create a great experience for your customers both in-store and online.
Maya Angelou once said, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
By marrying all the elements of your channels via Total Community, you create a memorable omni-channel experience for the customer. Your store associates and community managers become curators of great experiences, backed by the insight, advice and expertise of other customers, internal experts, and influencers bridging the in-store and digital experiences. At the end of the day, customers interact with you not only for great products, but because of the feeling you leave them with through your experience.
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