Customer Service

Customers need more than frictionless experiences in retail

Retailers today need to recognize the true reason why people abandon their shopping carts. They got distracted and then they forgot.

Photo: Generated by AI. Adobe Stock.

February 7, 2025 | David W. Norton, Mary Putman, Aransas Savas

Friction. It's the enemy that every seller today fears. If there's friction in the delivery channel then, we are told, the buyer will abandon the purchase. The CX gurus have thus spoken.

But when we talk to people about why they abandon shopping activities, they tell us it was because they were distracted by a more pressing need. Then, they simply forgot to complete their shopping activity.

The same is true for most human activities today. We have so many things vying for our attention that it's impossible to remember everything. So, we outsource our memory to technology.

Retailers today need to recognize the true reason why people abandon their shopping carts. They got distracted and then they forgot.

As the population continues to grow older and as technology continues to do more for people, retention of information becomes the major issue that experience strategists must address.

For retailers, the impact of forgetfulness can be tremendous. Forgetting to buy something for an event means that when the event passes, there will be no need for the item. Forgetting a list of things to purchase — or not making a list at all—can eliminate a number of transactions. Forgetting that a store is close by or that the store offers delivery can eliminate whole shopper missions.

Eliminating friction from the experience does not help with loss of memory. Eliminating friction does not make the experience more memorable. In fact, simplification of steps, no matter how effective and convenient, can actually make the shopping activity less memorable.

Now, we are not arguing for retailers to increase friction, add pain points, or make things complex. Simple is still good. It's just not the biggest issue that buying strategists face. The biggest issue is recall.

Solutions for improving recall

The answer for recall cannot just be more reminders. In too many cases, the proliferation of alerts causes the customer to be overwhelmed and to not pay attention.

To best support customers in their buying activities, retailers should instead focus on the following:

1. Seek to learn about the common situations that people experience when they are likely to buy.
2. Create better 'queues' for research, decision-making, and buying activities.
3. Learn to recognize contextual clues regarding forgetting.

1. Understanding common situations

People buy today 'in situ.' They always have. But retailers tend to forget that there is something going on in the moment when a person decides to buy. Understanding the situation in which the customer decides to buy helps the seller to tailor the experience to their situational needs. For example, if it's morning time and cold out the buyer is likely to have different buying needs than if it's after dinner and warm out. Knowing the common situations that arise when people buy can help you provide contextual advice to buyers that encourage recall. For example, you might say, "what are three things you wished you had the last time it was this cold out?"

2. Create better queues

People outsource their memories to technology. They do so by starting and stopping activities in digital queues. A queue can be an inbox, shopping cart, news feed, tab, app window, or dashboard. The customer will stop an activity often in hopes of returning to the activity later. Queues save their place and function as a mnemonic trigger for future activity. But often, when a person returns to a site or activity, they have to start from scratch. That requires them to back up and try to remember their decision-making process. Retailers can do a much better job of queueing activities for their customers so that they can quickly re-engage. Queueing can be tied to common situations so that people get contextual assistance. A morning-time buyer might very well want a morning-time queue that fits his or her typical morning-time routine.

3. Recognize the forgetting clues

What does a pause in activity, followed by a short return in activity, followed by another long pause in buying activity mean? Does it mean that site or store has friction? Probably not. It may be 'contextual Morris code' for, "I can't remember what I was doing on this site." There are all kinds of contextual clues that people give off that they've forgotten something. But retailers often assume the worst. Maybe they are shopping a competitor. Maybe they've lost interest.

Or maybe they just forgot. Retailers need to make great strides in interpreting the signs of when someone loses interest versus when someone simply forgets. Many retailers provide nudges today that elicit defensiveness or anxiety in their shoppers (like the dreaded, your shopping cart is waiting for you notifications). Instead, remind shoppers of the value you provide in a way that helps them feel valued. People want to remember details and they need retailers to assist in meaningful ways.

This article was co-authored by Dave Norton, Ph.D., founder and principal of Stone Mantel, a research-led consultancy, and lead experience strategists Mary Putman and Aransas Savas.