Commentary

How location intelligence enhances the customer experience

Jason Bettinger, senior director and head of consumer technologies, Americas, at HereTechnologies, explains how location intelligence, when combined with operational and customer data, can deliver greater efficiencies and enhanced levels of customer experience previously unattainable.

Photo by iStock.com

April 15, 2019

By Jason Bettinger, head of consumer technologies, Americas, HERE Technologies

Retailers wanting to deliver on customers' ever-increasing expectations need to look at innovative ways to incorporate location intelligence (LI) into business operations and strategies for 2019.

A smooth customer experience is marked by reduced friction, convenience, great service and a high level of personalization throughout the buying journey. For retailers, creating insights from the data they have on their operations and consumer behaviors are key to address these imperatives.

Location intelligence, when combined with the vast amounts of operational and customer data owned by most retailers, delivers greater efficiencies and levels of customer experience that were previously unattainable.

Winning on pick-up and delivery

Buying on-line, picking up in the store, and home delivery have become essential services for consumers looking to accomplish more in less time and survive in today's fast paced world. One recent consumer research report by MetaPack, for example, revealed that the vast majority (87%) of consumers were highly likely or more likely to shop again with an online merchant following a positive delivery experience.

Conversely, 56% of those abandoning an online shopping cart did so because the delivery options on an offer were too expensive, and 39% because the delivery would take too long.

The information that a retailer presents on their website or mobile application regarding product availability, delivery or pick-up times has to be consistent and accurate. This requires greater visibility into the supply chain from the manufacturer to the store and everywhere in between. Most importantly, it requires a level of real-time location knowledge about where customers are, where they are going, and the route they are taking to get there.

Personalized and timely advertising

Offering great pick-up and delivery options is, of course, merely one part of the customer journey. Throughout the journey, retailers need to be able to connect with customers in a way that is viewed as valuable versus bothersome.

Having more granular, accurate, and robust location intelligence can offer more than points of interest or geo-fenced marketing offers to drive nearby customers into stores and restaurants. The latest location data-driven technologies have the power to tell brands if and when consumers are going into a store, what stores they are going into and whether they are converting purchasing intent into actual purchases. These advanced insights can drive more strategic marketing campaigns and improve understanding of attribution.

The value of LI insights for today's retailers comes from a combination of consumers' real-time location data and a level of accuracy and contextual data associated with the places those consumers visit. Understanding journeys between where consumers live, where they work, where they play, and where they shop (including your competitors) provides a better overall awareness of the most relevant and dominant trends in customers' behavior and allows retailers to more seamlessly fit into their customers' lives.

Location drives CX innovation

Those retailers that are truly innovating in terms of delivering enhanced customer experiences are fast learning to use new forms of location data in their analytics to drive insights that serve to boost their marketing efforts and to develop better ways of reaching customers, improving brand reputation and increasing overall efficiency.

An overwhelming 77% of firms think LI is growing in importance, and that it will be important, critical or extremely critical within the next three years, according to a recent report conducted by Forrester Consulting, “location intelligence drives competitive edge in the digital age.”

Retailers and eCommerce companies are rapidly embracing the benefits of LI. Particularly when it comes to improving their marketing, communications with their customers and understanding how they impact the overall quality of the CX throughout a customer's journey. That improved CX has a bottom line benefit in that 44% of those in retail and e-commerce believe location intelligence boosts revenue.

Location-based insights offer retailers a more complete understanding of their customers' wants and needs, informing product and service development, identifying new ways of engaging customers, providing greater visibility to customers throughout the fulfillment cycle, and ultimately aligning more closely with what customers value.

A location enabled multi-channel strategy

When it comes to in-store or in-mall promotions, the customer experience is more important than ever. Deploying the latest indoor location technologies and location-powered applications tells you more about the shopping habits and preferred stores or brands of individual consumers.

And when delivering to increasingly-demanding eCommerce consumers, improving last-mile delivery costs and offering fast, cheap, trackable deliveries with ETAs time frames that span minutes (not hours, never mind days) is everything.

The retail customer experience is no longer two or more separate things: the online e-commerce experience, the mobile app or the in-store experience. Today's customer is online all of the time. And on the move for much of it. Hence retailers need one location platform to enable their strategy which serves to stitch together both the multiple channels through which their customers can engage them, but also their internal processes that support those engagements across all of those channels.

Know who your customers are, know what they want, and know when, where and how to deliver it. That's the promise of location intelligence for retailers in 2019 and beyond.