Being a retailer, your main goal is to acquire new customers and retain the existing ones. A retail store’s customer service is one of the most important business strategies to maximize store sales or fix any issues with the sales dips.
Have you ever seen customers walking out of the stores after bad experiences? Ever thought that besides receiving the products they wanted, what messed up their shopping journey? It is not just crucial to deliver stellar products. The retail store’s customer service quality also plays a significant role in distinguishing the type of customers and their shopping experiences.
Research by SuperOffice says that:
- As the key brand differentiator, customer experience will overtake product pricing and offerings
- 86% of customers are more likely to pay for improved customer experience
Hence, it explains that every retail store’s performance and success revolves around user experience. And with trained staff with better communication skills, customer experience is easily achievable.
So, let us explore the top 10 hacks that you can start with to level up your retail store’s customer service for the long run.
10 Strategies to Boost Retail Store’s Customer Service
Invest in Queue Management System
Customers can make complaints very quickly, especially when it is about service quality and wait time. They discuss how many things they can do or how their valuable time is wasted. This illustrates that the things to be addressed are long waiting times and inconvenient checkout times. All this leads to client churn, which affects the company’s growth and sales. The loss of prospective customers is also the highest risk.
The customers have free time with a queue management system to fulfill their daily tasks while waiting for their turn to come. It gives retailers a range of ways to improve user’s shopping experiences. The consumer inflow can be captured, and wait times can be analyzed. Such data can help to understand what customers are experiencing and make decisions accordingly.
You can improve the customer service experience by assessing the queues. Here, CRM software like the queue management software enhances retailers’ brand loyalty, builds solid relationships, and boosts sales.
Qwaiting is one of the most useful tools for every retail company. It reduces waiting times for customers. It also offers excellent features that enhance customer experience and queue efficiency.
Update In-Store Merchandising
The products are only the thing that draws the customer’s attention. Displays that are embarrassed or too busy will therefore overwhelm customers with a poor shopping experience.
In-store merchandising keep every product in its right place. It makes it easy for the customers to find what they are looking for more quickly, contributing to a better overall experience.
Every product remains in place with in-store merchandising. It makes it easy for their customers to find what they need and helps them achieve a better overall experience.
Data- Analytics for Better Decision Making
Decisions made based on data and facts are the new trend in the retail world. Today, brick-and-mortar stores and online retail stores have different approaches to gather customer information.
For example, you have repeat customers who schedule hair services alongside skincare. Using such information, you can offer promotions or deals with the services they mostly schedule.
Investing in data-collecting systems can help learn better about consumer needs and provide them tailored services. Qwaiting offers real-time reports that help businesses know the customer’s past purchasing habits and understand the peak hours. Also, it allows the retailers to better allocate the staff according to the demand and measure the staff performance by automating the repetitive tasks.
Provide Training to Staff
You might be thinking why individuals not involved in customer support or sales must understand the significance of customer connections.
The reason for this is quite specific. For instance, How often do you need to seek help in the shop and reach the first person you see for help? Have you ever heard in return, “not my job?” Have they ever helped you direct to the person in charge? Not too often, naturally. This is the reason why customers quit. Such retail store’s customer service makes them feel disregarded and fails to help them.
Therefore, retailers should ensure that all employees understand and acknowledge the importance of customer care. They need to realize that it is their job to direct customers towards the right help. This customer service tip is important because you won’t understand until you get in the customer’s shoes.
Ensure Seamless Checkout Process
There are several ways to make the checkout process as simple as possible.
From ensuring customers follow store guidelines to enabling consumers to schedule shopping appointments, how well you handle everything says a lot about your retail store’s customer service.
Similarly, the checkout process at your store finalizes if the customer will make the purchase. So, you must follow the below tips to make the best possible impression possible at the time of checkout.
- Information of privacy policies to customers: Ensure each consumer who buys from your store understands the return or exchange policy. This is because there are many products most of the time with no exchange or return policy. So if customers find that it is non-returnable after purchasing an item, they will feel agitated.
- Provide some freebies to customers: Another great way to help retailers improve customer service is by offering customers freebies. Shoppers will simply feel thankful to you by providing something complimentary. For instance, ask them at your check-out counter for a cold drink, coffee, or a free sample of products. It will simply tap into the customer perceptions about the brand.
- Gather Feedback: As a company owner, your role is to meet the needs of the customer. However, until you understand what the customer wants, satisfying customers’ demands can be hectic. Therefore, asking for feedback, conducting surveys or polls can help you increase the retail store’s customer service.
Keep your Customers Entertained with Digital Signage
Previously, retail companies used old marketing tactics such as brochures, or posters for conveying the upcoming promotions or deals. But in this digital world, it’s not the same. Modern businesses use the modern form of marketing to capture and maintain their customers’ attention, Digital Signage is one such tool. Businesses can utilize it to showcase their products, new deals, business timings, or simply entertain customers with news or music videos.
Digital signage can be both interactive or static and placed inside or out of the store, depending on the retailer’s needs. It provides quality customer service and shopping experience, from brand story to visual product demonstration and extra product knowledge. In addition, retailers can utilize digital signs as an advertising platform to enhance brand awareness.
Focus on Brand Reputation
For many businesses, customer service is about building brand image. Negative opinions and customer reviews can impact the brand name even when the services or product offerings are good. Hence, communicating with the clients who feel dissatisfied and providing them assurance is one way to sustain the business reputation.
You can also invest in a reputation management system to analyze where your business is failing. You can use live chat services on social media channels to manage business reputation or on-site support. These solutions respond to customer concerns and eliminate the chances of affecting the company’s reputation.
Set up Self-Service Kiosks for Quick Service
Today, self-service kiosks are the most common form of retail kiosk solutions. It allows customers to browse the offerings in a brick-and-mortar store at their convenience. Also, customers can make the payment instantly once they have collected the products they want to buy. The self-checkout kiosks are designed to allow multiple gateways of payments, such as cash and debit cards. Also, it makes the buyers scan and pay for purchases without waiting in long queues.
Thus the employees can concentrate on customer experience and provide the best possible support.
Communication is Vital
No matter if you want to inform the store visitors about the store’s opening hours, offerings, or upcoming deals, communicating with the customers regularly is vital.
The best thing that retailers can do in this respect is to inform customers of any future changes in advance. You can also display the information on the website, so communication is alive and they are notified about upcoming events or updates.
Add-Ons and Upselling
The common mistake that businesses make in the retail sector is just delivering what customers are asking for. In the online shopping era, it is common that customers already know about the products and simply visit to buy them.
For instance, customers go to the shop to buy. The poorly trained employees will either lead the customer to the product or tell them that the product does not exist. This leads to sales or no sales.
Now, the question comes of improving the retail store’s customer service.
Therefore, providing training on exceptional customer service can help shoppers discover the products concerned. Any additional product associated with their needs can also be shown to complement the purchase.
The Bottom Line
Whether retail or something else, customer service is a critical part of all business. In addition, business success depends on how well you treat the customers. You have to understand what your customers expect and try to satisfy their needs.
Adopting all these methods can boost the retail store’s customer service and make the customers feel valuable. Also, to increase employee performance and consumer experience, you can invest in training and provide technological tools to your staff.
Looking to create an amazing and efficient store experience that is appreciated by your customers. Qwaiting is a well-established retail queue management system that helps businesses to achieve happier customers. It offers advanced queuing options like the QR Queue system, Appointment Scheduling, SMS Queue system, digital signage, and self-service kiosk app.
Sign up for a 14-days free trial today!