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With conventional retailers coming under intense and increasing pressure from online shopping sites, finding a way to retain the loyalty of customers is key if businesses are to survive and thrive well into the future. Stores do have a unique advantage over e-shopping channels; they can provide a more personalised, more 'human' shopping experience that draws customers back to the store in spite of the accessibility and speed of shopping online. The quality of this shopping experience is heavily dependent on the ways staff interact with customers and the effectiveness of how they respond to customers' needs. Retaining customers requires high-performing, well-trained staff, but how can you be sure that your staff are satisfying customers to the best of their ability? One widely-used method is to employ the services of a customer insights firm which utilises a range of tools and processes to provide targeted data on staff performance and customer experience. These tools are many and varied. 'Accompanied shops', for example, is when a researcher accompanies a customer as they make their way around the store, allowing them to explore and deconstruct the shopping experience through the typical customer's eyes. Usually making use of pre- and post-shop in-depth interviews, accompanied shops allows an experienced customer researcher to understand the decision-making processes of shoppers, the triggers that lie behind purchasing decisions and the impact of store communications. This subsequently enables retailers to direct their staff in the best way to engage customers, either through face-to-face selling or through tailoring of store layouts and displays. Another popular technique is the 'mystery shop', widely used by major retailers to regularly gauge the authentic shopping experience in their stores and the attentiveness and politeness of staff. This is perhaps the best way in which customer researchers access the 'natural' shopping environment, and is the most effective for assessing staff behaviour first hand. Systemic deficiencies in the interactions between employee and customer can be accurately identified, allowing retailers to adapt their training procedures to build a more responsive service. Alternatively, mystery shops can be used to determine individual weaknesses in staff behaviour ahead of annual performance reviews. However, if retailers prefer a more varied set of viewpoints, focus groups provide a great opportunity for customer researchers to identify the key issues raised by shoppers across a broad demographic. Carried out either in person or online, focus groups facilitate discussion between as many as 30 shoppers, which helps to build a more detailed, nuanced picture of the customers' shopping experience. A moderator can also probe customer responses at certain points, which allows greater insights than may be gained in a simple questionnaire. Customer researchers utilising these tools and processes, among others, give retailers an objective account of the customer experience and how their staff are contributing to this experience. Such insights allow employers to optimise training procedures and performance monitoring, ensuring that they get the best out of their staff and subsequently give the most to their customers, building loyalty and guaranteeing the future success of the business. Matt Crumble is employed at PBS UK, a company specialising in Payroll Outsourcing. They offer UK and intenational payroll services as well as HR consultancy. With a wide range of other services on offer such as employee checks, employers can ensure that they are getting the best out of their staff and businesses.
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customer research, consumer research, staff improvement, staff performance, shopping experience, customer researchers, improve staff performance,
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