Article
Retail customer engagement comes into focus at NRF Big Show
Panelists discuss the need for merchants to build great experiences in physical enviroments and use mobile to enhance interaction.
January 12, 2015 by Will Hernandez — Editor, NetWorld Media Group
If mobile app developers want to strive for greatness as it relates to how consumers use and interact their product, they might want to take note of what happens at every San Francisco 49ers home game.
Levi's Stadium, a new $1.3 billion facility dubbed the most tech-savvy event venue in existence, holds almost 70,000 people for a football game. At any given moment during a 49ers home game this past season, half the fans in attendance were using the Levi's Stadium app. The app enables fans to use it for mobile ticketing, to order concessions, watch replays just a couple of seconds after a play concludes, and even buy a jersey.
In return, the franchise learns key information about their customers and uses it to personalize each fan's experience. Retailers should take note.
"It's something fun that has become engaging," Paraag Marathe, the president of the 49ers, said during a keynote panel at the National Retail Federation's Big Show conference here in New York City.
Marathe participated in a panel that brought together executives from some major sports leagues in the U.S. as well as the chairman and CEO from the Women's Tennis Association, and the general manager for the FIFA World Cup champions, the German National Team.
The panel discussion was meant to illustrate some parallels that exist between how sports leagues and retailers engage their end users. For the 49ers, part of that process has to do with what the team learns from fans who use the Levi's Stadium app.
"We know the individuals coming into the building," Marathe said. "Fans] are using the app from anywhere between several minutes to an hour [during a game].
"We were learning about all types of things from them [like which highlights they like to watch, favorite food orders and favorite players]. We're trying to create an experience and make it fun."
Retailers right now are trying to do the same, perhaps now more than ever as the mobile channel and brick-and-mortar merge into one experience. At least that's the case for those retailers who can do it well.
Baljit S. Dail, who is the chairman and CEO for supply chain management supplier JDA Software Group, reminded Big Show attendees during another panel that the physical retail store is still an important part of the customer experience. But merchants need to keep brick-and-mortar locations and ecommerce on equal footing to meet consumers' expectations for both, he said.
"Digital and mobile are enhancements [to physical locations], they're not a separate channel," Dail said. "Some retailers are pretty far away from running a seamless experience between online and in the physical store."
Bill Simon, the former chairman and CEO of Walmart, told the audience during the same panel there is an opportunity for retailers to provide customers with meaningful experiences at physical locations that can't happen on a mobile device such as immediacy (to fulfill a purchase) and a helpful sales staff.
"The secret of retail is to use tech to deliver great customer service [in stores]," Simon said. "As physical retailers begin to come onboard [with technology enhancements] you'll see some [of this interaction] in the store.
"Those who innovate will be around long term."
Photo courtesy of the National Retail Federation.
About Will Hernandez
Will Hernandez has 14 years of experience ranging from newspapers to wire services and trade publications. Before becoming Editor of MobilePaymentsToday.com, he spent two years as the content manager for PaymentsJournal.com, a leading payments industry news aggregator and information hub published by Mercator Advisory Group. Will spent four years covering the payments industry as an associate editor for multiple publications in SourceMedia's Payments Group based in Chicago.
