HARDISON’S TIPS – MAY 21, 2021 – HOW TO WELCOME PEOPLE IN YOUR STORE DURING COVID 19
5. Capture Customer Data to Improve Marketing and Reduce CAC for your Ecommerce Team
The final benefit of store-specific messaging is that you create a lot more digital touchpoints with customers. Unlike over the phone or in person, it’s relatively easy to capture customer details within messaging apps. Facebook Messenger, for example, enables users to release their email to businesses with one tap so they don’t even have to type it out.
Capturing data in this way can help can improve email or SMS marketing at a local level to drive future footfall and improve personalisation. It can be a useful way to drive sign-ups to your loyalty card or drive downloads of your mobile. It can also help convert offline customers to omnichannel customers and reduce customer acquisition costs for your eCommerce team.
The final data-related benefit of messaging is that head office can retain oversight of messaging transcripts and can extract insights from what customers are saying. This would be extremely difficult to achieve with a phone system. The insights generated can help shape future product ranges and training to maximise sales.
Bonus Benefits – Head Office Can Easily Assume Control or Pick of the Slack
The final benefit of messaging is that it is very easy for head office staff to jump in and start answering messages whenever there is a backlog of customers waiting to be answered. This might be the case for many retailers post-lockdown but in “normal” times it is very prevalent in the run-up to Christmas, for example. In fact, it is possible to route all messages to head office if that is your preference in very busy periods (or all the time).
The messaging channel offers great flexibility and helps you look after each customer as well as possible and improve overall customer experience and loyalty.
Messaging is the Creative Way to Increase Retail Sales You’ve Been Looking For
At least 23% of consumers searching for store details online are looking for the store’s phone number. This was one of the most surprising statistics I unearthed from the users of my previous startup (Localmint.com), which was an online retail directory.
If you switch on messaging as a store contact channel you will see traction almost instantly and you can start reaping the benefits outlined above. This is particularly true for Google My Business messaging, which will be the driving force behind messaging being adopted as a store contact channel. A real plus is there is very little input needed from IT or any other part of your organisation. You just need to ensure that your store staff are equipped with devices and have some basic training so they can respond.
Implementing store-specific messaging would be a good idea at any time. During the COVID-19 pandemic and the recession that is likely to follow, it could be the difference between survival and bankruptcy for some retailers. True retailers understand the importance of customer engagement in increasing retail sales. Retailers that adopt store-specific messaging early will steal a march on their competitors.
