Are retailers focusing on the right targets to deliver CX?
Two-thirds of retail businesses say improving customer experience (CX) is a high-priority business objective. But are they focusing on the right initiatives?
That’s the question posed by Fujitsu’s Richard Clarke, Executive Director, Global Retail Enterprise Business Group, based on important new sector research commissioned by Fujitsu.
From a transactional to an emotional CX.
You don’t have to look too far for evidence that retail DX initiatives to date have focused on customer touchpoints. According to new research commissioned by Fujitsu looking at the views of 166 retail sector ICT decision-makers in 15 countries, the most widely deployed initiatives in recent months have focused on digital marketing, product recommendation engines and hyper-local shopping fulfilment. Combining the online and physical presence (the “omnichannel” word is becoming a bit tired now) is clearly where retailers are focusing now.
But is all this really at the heart of the matter? I don’t believe it is.
There are no prizes for noting that the pandemic has accelerated the shift to online retailing. But the danger – as online buying becomes routine – is shopping becomes commoditized, functional, increasingly devoid of any sense of the emotional impact that physical retailers have invested in creating, often over many decades.
Where are we today? The customer says I want ‘x’: she scrolls, she browses and presses the ‘buy’ button, and it’s then delivered by a white van. Yes, the customer is getting exactly what she wants, but there is not much emotional investment there; little opportunity for the retailer to promote its brand values and make it personal. It’s very transactional. Retailers are desperate to add some emotion and pizazz back into the mix. That applies as much to the upstart online disrupters as well as the been-around-for-a-while-now physical retailers.
Read the full article here.
