Customer Service

3 ways to level up CX for the new era of retail

John Hernandez, EVP and GM for multicloud solutions at Genesys, shares three ways retailers can level up customer experiences for the next normal — the new era of retail.

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July 8, 2021 by John Hernandez

Customer experience is king, especially when it comes to retail.

A 2020 Global Customer Experience Benchmarking Report by NTT found 81.5% of global retail executives see customer experience as a key competitive differentiator. And with customer experience driving two-thirds of customer loyalty, it's no surprise CX has become the number one business KPI for retailers.

The pandemic has magnified the importance of seamless experiences, with a majority of consumer spend shifting online and the expectation for omnichannel service ever-more amplified. Forrester Research predicts a 40% increase in digital customer service interactions this year alone. The acceleration of e-commerce and increased demand for curbside and contactless pickup and BOPIS options has made delivering truly connected experiences for retailers more complex.

Retailers are at an inflection point with an opportunity to re-emerge with strength by accelerating their digital transformation using the right technologies and partners. Here are three ways that retailers can level up their customer experiences for the next normal — the new era of retail.

#1 Rethink the one-size-fits-all approach: Invest in connected ecosystems

The inability to connect different systems and technologies is a primary culprit to disjointed customer experiences.

Many cloud-native retailers flourished during the pandemic with the ability to be available anywhere and at any time. However, for many iconic, global brands, moving to the cloud is not a trivial task. Over the years, they have invested in sophisticated technologies and augmented them with point solutions for newer capabilities, like chat, bots or social. They need to integrate and manage the diverse tech stack they've created, and ripping and replacing every single solution is not ideal, or even possible.

There is no one size fits all approach when it comes to digital transformation. For companies with a diverse tech stack, digital transformation means investing in technologies that can connect and orchestrate the interactions across many different systems. Many are doing this through multicloud platforms, which they can customize by easily plugging in their existing technologies and partners.

#2 Listen to customers: Use interaction data to personalize journeys

Connecting in-store and online data to deliver an anywhere, any channel experience has become a top consumer expectation. Yet, only one in three retailers integrates customer data sources for a full 360-degree customer view.

Think about the missed opportunity by simply tying data across marketing, sales and service for something as common as an abandoned shopping cart. A return customer browses a sporting goods website, adds a tennis racket to their cart and wanders off without completing the purchase. A day later, the same customer returns to browse, then opens up the chat to ask a question.

By applying AI-based tools like predictive routing, that interaction can be personalized. The request would be intelligently routed to the right agent with specific expertise in sporting goods, and the agent would have visibility into the customer's digital cart, allowing them to close the sale, possibly even upsell for complementary products. But let's say the customer was not ready to make the purchase that day, marketing can subsequently use that data to follow-up with a discount offer via email to drive home that purchase.

At the end of the day, customers don't care what department they interact with; they only see one brand. By connecting data across all touchpoints, retailers can build a complete picture of every customer and not only personalize and respond to their need, but also discover and predict future behavior.

#3 Expand coverage: Enable an empowered CX workforce with intelligent tools

Highly engaged employees typically deliver the best customer service. And with studies indicating that companies with highly engaged employees outperform their competitors by and astonishing 147%, keeping an engaged workforce is crucial.

The average employee turnover rate across U.S. industries is around 22%. For the retail industry, it is above 60% according to the National Retail Federation. For an industry that revolves around customer experience, the stakes are high when it comes to engaging and retaining employees given the cost to hire and retrain new staff.

Retail agent knowledge has the greatest impact on customer experience. By engaging employees via learning and performance management, retailers can empower them with the technical skills and tools needed to adapt to changing environments while also providing superior experiences that align with evolving consumer expectations.

Worker-focused tools, like flexible scheduling, accommodates the workforce while balancing business needs, whereas capabilities like gamification taps into employees' natural desire for competition while encouraging collaboration.

Finally, leveraging intelligent workload distribution (IWD) capabilities can manage the allocation of work in a skills-based model, providing both operational transparency and efficiency. In its simplest terms, IWD treats any back-office work item in the same manner as the call center "front office" — from routing and assigning to reporting and tracking. For digital retailers, this could mean streamlining online digital orders by routing to the best available worker to fulfill or getting real-time and historical visibility for returns to track and send.

With COVID-19 accelerating the shift to a digital world, the technology decisions that retail leaders make today will have lasting impact to their businesses as we all prepare for the next normal. Those that respond quickly to this lasting consumer shift with smart, future-proof CX strategies will reap its rewards in the coming years.

John Hernandez is EVP and GM for multicloud solutions at Genesys

About John Hernandez

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John joined Genesys in 2020 as SVP and General Manager, Genesys Engage. Within a few months in the role, he spearheaded the launch of the Genesys Multicloud architecture, an industry first.

Prior to joining Genesys, John was CEO of Selligent, a cloud marketing platform, Chief Operating Officer of the Salesforce multi-billion-dollar Service Cloud business, and Vice President and General Manager of the Contact Center business unit within the Cisco Collaboration division. He also held a variety of management positions at IBM and Nortel Networks.

John holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Santa Clara University.

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