Dear retailers, your slow response times are losing you customers

Now that we’ve gotten your attention, here’s the deal.

You probably already listen to your customers, track their behaviours, and understand their profiles. But is that really enough?

Here’s the short of the long — it’s not. Keep up with the times – mere customer-centricity isn’t enough. Customers now want to be engaged — to experience the personal “service” part of “customer service”.

These days, you’ve got to be “customer-obsessed”. This means being hyper-focused on customers, with everyone in the business consistently listening and, more importantly, responding to enhance the all-important CX (customer experience).

As pointed out by Critizr CEO and co-founder Nicolas Hammer: “Customer obsession is not just about considering the needs of customers. They need to be listened to at all levels of the company, understood and taken into account in the evolution and improvement of every process, service, and product.”

As customers are at the centre of every business strategy, creating the best experience is of paramount importance. It will drive a business’s philosophy and influence the way things operate.

And you’ll be better off for it when your customers’ high expectations are met, and they do the best kind of marketing for you. That is, speaking highly of your brand and giving you free word-of-mouth marketing.

Mind the customer experience gap

Source: Unsplash

One could say that data analytics is the best thing since sliced bread. Whilst listening is essential, it’s merely one part of the customer-obsession equation. The other is to act on what’s heard at every level of the business — from top executives to store teams.

However, corporate departments often work in silos, heavily guarding analyses and insights and only sharing them with data or marketing teams. Reports would only be released weeks or months later, if at all.

That’s problematic because these crucial insights aren’t shared with those who need them the most — those who directly face customers. This is important because frontline staff won’t be quick enough to respond to customers’ feedback. Store team members on the frontline represent and uphold the brand’s ethos and are the first point of contact customers have with a brand.

But most importantly, frontline workers are the ones who can respond in real-time and be influential brand advocates. On-site, immediate reactions are valuable brand reputation building blocks — slow, corporate responses are not.

“To create a real connection with customers, you have to respond to them and act quickly at the local level. The only way to effectively achieve this is by trusting and empowering frontline teams,” says Hammer.

Your front line teams are those who can quickly react, take concrete action, and smooth over any bumps in the road for every customer. Multiply these little acts and improvements across the entire business, and you open your eyes to just how powerful the impact is on overall business performance.

Get yourself a “customer-obsessed” solution

Source: Unsplash

 Closing the CX gap is simple — with a customer-obsessed, customer interaction management platform called Critizr Connection. Critizr’s all-in-one platform is a simple loop of listening – reacting – analysing – improving – performing.

Shop managers can take relationships with local communities to a new, personalised level. With Critizr, customers can leave their comments in-store, online, on mobile, or via 20+ third-party partners.

Customers can converse with their local stores in real-time through Critizr’s integration with Google Search and maps. Let’s be honest — nobody likes waiting.

So this is a crucial period where real-time, on-the-spot interactions happen. When customers send feedback, it conveniently pops up on the shop manager’s dashboard, the manager replies and takes appropriate action.

With real-time notifications and opportunities for instant action, this satisfies the customer immediately. As a result, it encourages loyalty and improves brand awareness and trust.

With customer obsession at its core, Critizr helps brands improve customer relationships whilst keeping frontline team members actively engaged and fulfilled. As individual managers excel at customer service, they, in turn, inspire their co-workers to orient their mindsets to become “customer-obsessed”.

You could say that Critizr could very well be a career-builder. Fulfilled employees give better service, making customers feel more satisfied, thus increasing sales – revolutionising retail.

Don’t just hear it from us – here’s what users say

Source: Critizr

Over 80 of the most prominent European companies from sectors ranging from retail to banking to hospitality and entertainment are using Critizr. Almost 82% of France’s grocery stores have improved their customer interactions and experiences through Critizr and have seen about 11% annual revenue growth.

Europe’s largest retailer, Carrefour, collected nearly two million instances of in-store customer feedback last year. There was a 96% response rate from its 6,000 frontline employees using the platform, allowing for 1.9 million quick responses.

“Thanks to Critizr, the relationship between the consumer and the store is facilitated, as the customer can now be in direct contact with our store managers via the integrated platform on our web and in-store tools.

“This innovative and unique solution reinforces the close connection that we have with our customers,” said Hervé Parizot, former e-commerce director, customer data and innovation specialist at Carrefour.

“That time factor strikes us as the key point for the success of our project, which has resulted in an improved NPS (net promoter score),” said Florence Chaffiotte, former director of marketing and innovation at major French retailer Monoprix. It applies Critizr across its entire company from the shop floor to the boardroom, across 306 stores.

You’ll be happy to know that Critizr offers a free demo — so why not try it out? Your customers will thank you for it.