With the arrival of smart retail systems, the need for sales associates to connect emotionally with the customers is increasingly becoming important.
With the arrival of smart retail systems, the need for sales associates to connect emotionally with the customers is increasingly becoming important.
Speaking at a recent webinar organized by Retailnext, Simon Turner, President and Co-founder of Myagi emphasized the role of the associate in making the experience better.
“One crucial element in [in retail today] is the emotional connection,” said Turner. “Its something that we all have deep inside us that really helps us connect with a person, a place or a scene. With all these, the sales associate is really the part that comes an knits these elements together, to help curate that whole experience.”
The nature of the retail industry has changed. There is a new shopper journey and the shopper is empowered like never before with technology and information available through technology. As the shopper embarks on their shopping journey, whether they are outside the store, at the door, inside the store, at home, on the go or anywhere else, there is this tremendous digital influence.
Today’s tech-empowered shopper is in control of the shopping experience and in turn are demanding different experiences from the retailers that they frequent.
Retailnext pointed out a concept called Knowledge Deficiency Gap, wherein the shopper is more knowledgeable about the product and what it offers than the sales associate itself. In this context it is important to look at how to make the sales associates smarter along with the sales experience.
Turner said that to understand the situation that we are in at the moment, it would be prudent to look at the history of retail. If we look into the 1970s, there is this dominance of custom-centric high touch customers. Then in the 1990s there was the discount to win strategy. The early 2000s saw the rise of ecommerce.
“What we are actually seeing today is what we call the experiential retail,” Turner added. “There’s been a lot of talk about it, but it is really where there is an emotionally engaging experience into the core of the shopper journey. There is a lot more than the transaction. The lines of offline and online retailer are really blurred and the key differentiating factor is that the retail is really understanding the customers and what they really want when they shop.”
Turner added that a classic example of a company that has managed to rethink the retail concepts is Apple. If you go into an Apple store it is impossible to be lost, with the sales associates who are knowledgeable and helpful in their interactions with the customers.