5 Steps To A Connected Consumer Experience

1Why Customer Engagement Matters So Much Now, Gallup, http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/172637/why-customer-engagement-matters.aspx2Prescription for Cutting Costs, Bain & Company, http://www.bain.com/Images/BB_Prescription_cutting_costs.pdf

As consumers blend digital and physical on their shopping journey, retailers are finding that OMS and POS—the critical links to a connected brand experience—are just better together.

• Engaged customers—those who have had a measurable reaction, connection, or experience with your brand—represent a 23% premium in terms of share of wallet, profitability, revenue, and relationship growth compared to the average customer. 1

• Disengaged customers—those who have no emotional connection to your brand—represent a 13% discount by those same measures.1

It’s common knowledge that it costs less to maintain existing customers than it does to acquire new ones. The difference is dramatic; a 5 percent improvement in customer retention pays back a 25 percent increase in profits.2

Your most loyal and engaged customers spend more—a lot more.

Some things are just better together.

I want to engage my customers.

I want to improve my customer experience.

Of late, the biggest gains in retail customer engagement and loyalty have been driven by e-commerce sites.

• Forrester found that 78 percent of digital marketing experts were using collaborative filtering techniques and real-time self-learning analytics to deliver targeted digital offers.3

Yet, retailers that report they are highly effective at personalization are an elite group.

• Gartner found that less than 10 percent of Tier 1 retailers believe they are highly effective. Even more alarming is that nearly one-third say they have limited or no capability to support personalization efforts.4

These statistics reveal an opportunity for merchants to differentiate by extending personalized digital experiences to the physical realm.

3Unlock The Promise Of Customer Data, Forrester, http://www1.janrain.com/rs/janrain/images/Industry-Research-Unlock-Customer-Data.pdf4New Research on Personalization Highlights the Challenges, Gartner, http://blogs.gartner.com/robert-hetu/new-research-on-personalization-highlights-the-challenges/

Keeping pace with personalization is, however, a considerable challenge. Today’s consumer walks into stores armed with all the personalized information that online channels offer. Yet store associates typically don’t have access to that same information. This disjointed experience can lead to disappointment with the brand.

As more shoppers take a path through digital and physical price and product research, establishing and maintaining loyalty through personalization—both online and in-stores—becomes a complex equation.

Some things are just better together.

I need loyal customers.

I need to extend personalization across channels.

Here are five recommendations for extending

personalization and loyalty across channels.

These executives are responsible for:

• Analyzing the enterprise customer experience and sales infrastructure that supports it

• Determining where connections must be made among online, in-store, and call center groups

• Removing barriers to collaboration

They’re driving the hard work it takes to establish those connections through operational and technological change.

1As long as business groups exist in separate silos, so will the customer and inventory data that’s critical to providing a personal experience. Progressive retailers are taking a creative approach to enabling this collaboration by appointing a new breed of executive, with titles like Chief Customer Experience Officer and Chief Omnichannel Officer.

Demolish silos among business groups.

2

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=Merchants can’t move product if store associates don’t know you have it, or don’t know where to find it. To meet the consumer’s expectation of seemingly limitless online merchandise selection at the store level, store staff must be equipped to leverage the power of enterprise-wide network inventory.

That means supplying associates with tools to locate specific inventory, whether it resides in a store, a DC, or in the extended supply chain. It also means empowering them with a platform that gives certainty that inventory is available to sell. Finding what the customer wants from all available inventory—and fulfilling in the way the customer wants to receive it—helps close the experience gap between online and in-store.

Some things are just better together.

I want to see my available inventory.

I need flexible fulfillment.

Sell anywhere, fulfill anywhere.

Extending the consumer’s personal online experience to stores requires more than an endless aisle. It takes personal insight into the shopper’s needs, wants, and desires, which empowers the merchant to extend a personal experience in new ways.

3

Customer information captured online, including order history and wish lists, can empower store associates with new insight into the consumer’s relationship with the brand. Associate-level visibility into that relationship doesn’t just influence the consumer’s perception of and loyalty to the brand, it drives powerful upsell and cross-sell opportunities.

Empower store associates to offer a personalized selling experience.

4

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A holistic view of any-channel customer data and enterprise inventory availability equips the associate to transition the shopper from online price and product research to the store. Creating the best possible brand experience requires sales and customer service associates to have the ability to pick up where the shopper last left off.

Associates and call center representatives might meet a shopper on any point of her journey—be it pre-purchase, at checkout, or after a purchase has been made. Associates must be armed with the data necessary to continue nurturing the personal relationship wherever and whenever that meeting occurs.

I need completecustomer data.

Some things are just better together.

I need to empower my associates to engage.

Create A Seamless Transition.

Establishing personalization and driving loyalty requires integrating order management with POS. Better together, these technological building blocks enable a central repository for all customer transactions, providing a 360° view of online and in-store customer orders, records, and call center activity.

5

The marriage of order management and POS creates opportunity to holistically engage the consumer. This opportunity manifests itself in a myriad of ways, from the extension of an in-store apparel sale with a matching accessory in e-commerce, to the brick-and-mortar sale of an item researched online, or the seamless exchange of goods from one channel to another.

Establish a 360° view of the customer.

OrderManagement Some things are

just better together.Point of sale

Establishing any-channel customer and inventory visibility comes with the potential to increase brand loyalty in modern retail. While the sales reward for loyalty is important, setting your brand apart while so much of the industry struggles to become effective at cross-channel personalization can create lasting bonds with your customers.

The Bottom Line

AbouT MAnhATTAn ASSoCiATES

Manhattan Associates makes commerce-ready supply chains that bring all points of commerce together so you’re ready to sell and ready to execute. Across the store, through your network or from your fulfillment center, we design, build and deliver market-leading solutions that support both top-line growth and bottom-line profitability. By converging front-end sales with back-end supply chain execution, our software, platform technology and unmatched expe-rience help our customers get commerce ready—and ready to reap the rewards of the om-ni-channel marketplace. - See more at: http://www.manh.com

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