Want to create remarkable store experience? Start with your brand.

Much attention is being given to customer experience, both in store and online as DTC brands establish a physical retail presence and traditional retailers struggle to reinvent their existing store estates and experience offered. While several DTC brands have successfully moved into physical retail by leveraging their online customer engagement and opening store concepts that complement their ecommerce sites, many traditional retailers continue to struggle to get beyond blandness. Bland retail is a symptom of a broader set of problems: it points to undifferentiated merchandise, sameness in promotions as well as lacklustre store environments due to decades of underinvestment and a lack of innovation. But it may also point to the problem of brand malaise.

As retail expert Steve Dennis wrote in Forbes last year, “Physical retail is not dead. Boring retail is”. He calls time on mediocre, undifferentiated, uninspiring retail and rightly implores retailers to choose to be remarkable. 

But how?

In the face of declining footfall and lacklustre store sales, retailers have turned to several options as hopeful solutions to the problem including discounting and store promotions, store events, and of course technology. While discounting and events may raise footfall in bursts, the former eats into vital margins and neither is a sustainable solution to fostering long-term growth. These potential solutions are just tactics but don’t form a coherent strategy to meaningfully engage customers with your brand and to sustain business growth over time. Equally, technology is not on its own a panacea for retail performance unless it is clear how it supports the customer experience you are looking to provide. To do that well, you have to get to the root of why you exist and the unique value proposition you offer.  You have to get back to your brand.

Technology selection in a vacuum

While I do not claim to be a brand expert, my experience from in-house marketing and commercial strategy roles have involved a lot of work on customer value propositions, brand values and messaging. I’ve been on the client side of tech selection for large-scale digital transformation programmes and in my work over the last few years, I’ve worked with many DTC brands and retailers helping to guide them in creating or transforming their store experience, respectively, through the use of customer-facing and back-office technology. 

One of the first questions I ask retailers wanting customer-facing technology is what their starting point is and what vision they have for the customer experience they want to provide in store, which I expect would be rooted in their brand proposition. It is surprising to me that many cannot answer that question because they either haven’t considered it, are unsure of what it is, or because they consider it an unnecessary hassle that will take too much time in the process. In too many cases, they skip the step of thinking through how their branded customer experience should be delivered in store and jump straight to the part of the process that seems less nebulous: solution features and functionality.

In these situations, the technology selection process may be led by tech teams without any or adequate involvement from the business side, something I see as problematic for several reasons:

1. It abstracts technical requirements from the needs of the business and severs the link with commercial and customer-related KPIs that are essential measures of success and business benefit for any tech investment.
2. It overlooks the fact that technology will be used by people to serve people, therefore it must take into account pain points and needs that both constituents – sales associates and customers – have today, how it will solve them and how it will be easily adopted by both to ensure success. 
3. Unlike discounting and events, which are more ephemeral tactics to drive retail performance, any tech selected today will sit in a business and influence it for years to come, so it’s important to get it right. It can best drive ROI by serving the customer and commercial goals of a business 
4. With few exceptions, customer-facing technology is broadly similar in functionality across vendors (apologies to vendors out there), so by focusing on functionality rather than the desired experience it supports, you run the risk of creating an experience that is generic and cookie cutter, mediated by tech. While the tech being implemented may be similar across retailers, the experience that any one brand or retailer provides should be differentiated. And it should feel differentiated to the customer. The only way to achieve this is by understanding how technology amplifies your brand and works with people and processes to bring your brand experience to life in a physical space.
5. By starting with tech requirements and ignoring the brand, we also make a dangerous assumption, that the brand value proposition is already clear and compelling. But what if it isn’t? If you are a brand that is struggling to clearly define who you serve and the benefits you offer them, then no amount of technology will solve this for you and make your physical presence compelling in a sustainable way.

The value of branded experience

A remarkable store experience is one that is rooted in the ethos and values of your brand, that looks and feels differentiated to the customer than what they get elsewhere. It should convey your brand purpose, embody your values and be memorable so that customers return and talk about it to others. We know that experience-driven businesses see higher rates of engagement, retention, customer satisfaction and lifetime value but for experience to be consistent and meaningful to your customers, it should convey what your brand stands for and provide a unique experience that customers can’t get anywhere else.

Who is doing this well?

Here are three examples of retailers who are getting it right by linking their brand propositions to in-store experience supported by tech:

Mulberry

At a recent event hosted by the Retail Collective, our panellists spoke about how they are using technology to help deliver a luxury customer experience that conveys their brand story. In its recently-opened flagship storeon London’s Regent Street, Mulberry has implemented sales associate apps for endless aisle and clienteling but they don’t default to them in the sales ceremony. In fact, as a customer, you can experience the store and a rich branded experience without even seeing the tech…until it is required. Sales associates will use them when and as needed to facilitate a sale, but keep the personal dimension and 1:1 relationship at the forefront, to deliver a luxury store experience that still feels personal. 

Zara

While some premium and luxury retailers are implementing mobile PoS capabilities to provide checkout to VIP customers while comfortably seated, others such as Zara has used tech to facilitate checkout to circumvent long queues during busy periods in store. Not only does this remove a key pain point for shoppers but it provides speed and convenience that underlie the values of this fast-fashion retailer. Now only if their returns process could be as quick and convenient…

Warby Parker

This DTC retailer brings its values of innovation and convenience with a personal touch to its growing retail store experience. It provides convenience with a unified PoS system that streamlines the purchase experience and offers innovative omnichannel experience elements that link up online and offline touchpoints. For example, customers can favourite frames that they like online for sales associates to access in store, and for frames they try on in store, they can have a photo taken and emailed to them, which they can they add to their online shopping cart in one click.  

So what should you do?

So for DTC brands entering physical retail and traditional brands looking to transform their retail experience, how should you approach this?

1. Start with your brand - Ask yourself what your brand stands for and why customers choose to engage and shop with you. And if you don’t know, find out and involve the stakeholders in your company who do. And if your customer value proposition isn’t already clear and compelling, you need to take a bigger step back.
2. Determine your brand values - With your branded value proposition in mind, how do you want your customers to think and feel when they interact with you across all channels – digital and physical? For example, are you aiming to be personal? Convenient? Playful? Distilling your brand down to key values that underpin your customer experience is important for determining how these will play out in your store experience. 
3. Make it real - How can and will you embed and make these values tangible and memorable to your customers across all touchpoints? What do you want your customers to do at your physical touchpoints and will you bring your branded experience to life to help them achieve their goals? What is the role of tech in supporting this?
4. Remove internal silos - Involve technical and business stakeholder in technology assessment and selection to ensure your choices support your business goals. Set KPIs so you can define and measure business success of any implementation at the outset.

Remarkable store experiences – those that successfully attract, engage and convert customers – are those that find ways to deliver value to their customers in a way that is differentiated and memorable. And the most effective way to do this is to ensure these experienced are anchored in the brand, to provide an experience that feels unique and that can’t be easily replicated anywhere else. By ensuring you have a clear value proposition linked to your brand, and understanding how this can be made tangible in store to support your customers in their shopping journey, you will be a step closer to creating store experiences that will engage your customers and keep them coming back over and over again. And it will enable you to make better technology decisions that will maximise ROI for your business.