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'Living Services' promises to radically change retailer-consumer interaction

There’s a tsunami of change coming toward the retail business environment and interaction with the customer that may turn today’s approaches and strategies in completely new directions, impacting everything from store design to communication with consumers.

June 19, 2015

There’s a tsunami of change coming toward the retail business environment and interaction with the customer that may turn today’s approaches and strategies in completely new directions, impacting everything from store design to communication with consumers.

It’s termed “living services,” and according to a new Accenture report it will let retailers deploy less intrusive customer experiences while boosting customer engagement and fostering stronger and faster sales.

The report provides information on how some brands are already putting ‘living services’ to work within the retail spectrum. One is example cited is how fashion retailer Nordstrom is determining store merchandising now on a weekly basis through tracking and gauging consumer product interest using the social network tool Pinterest.

“Living services will allow retailers to move away from the industry’s standard scenario of bombarding shoppers with offers on arrival at a location. By working with Pinterest Nordstrom is also providing staff with an iPad app to make it easy to show customers trending products and merchandise live,” stated the report.

The technology enabling “living services” is now mature enough for brands to create and deliver them at scale, the report said.

“The services will start to grow on a new layer of connected intelligence formed by sensors, the cloud, connected smart devices and real-time analytics,” which is all part of the emerging Internet of Things.

“We call them ‘Living Services’ for three reasons,” said Brian Whipple, senior managing director, Accenture Interactive, in a release. “They will change consumer experiences such as travel booking and shopping in real time around us. They will be driven by things that are very proximate to us such as wearables and nearables. And, at the human level, living services will affect our lives in a much deeper and more positive way than mobile and web services have. In effect, living services breathe life into what is rapidly becoming a vast network of connected machines and objects, enabling branded services to flow through and utilize this connected environment.”

Mark Curtis, chief client officer at Fjord, Design and Innovation from Accenture Interactive, said the concept is being driven by digital technology adoption but also by what Accenture terms as the ‘liquid expectations’ of today’s consumer.

“When consumers engage with a brand today, such as an airline or a bank, they compare their experience not only with other airlines or banks but also with any service company, such as ride-sharing providers. Take the seamless and largely invisible payment systems these providers offer. Now consumers want payment experiences like this in every industry, consciously or subconsciously. We call these expectations that bleed from one industry to another ‘liquid expectations.’ In effect, expectations will rise across every industry as innovation increases in any industry,” explained Curtis in the release.

The result, stated the report, is that marketing leaders and retailers will need to boost their understanding of customers using data and analytics, implementing services platforms and tools that are not only flexible but focused on one or two user experience delivery aspects.

“Design too will be impacted as organizations seek to deliver impactful yet consistent services using challenging new interaction types such as voice, gesture and location across a range of new devices,” states the report.

More examples of living services and their impact on business and society can be found in “The Era of Living Services” report.