From Knowing to Doing: How Data Helps Retailers Improve Customer Experiences

Customer motivations were long regarded as an unmeasurable mystery for retailers. However, the retail industry’s embrace of physical-digital shopping experiences has changed that, putting “shopper preferences” firmly in the camp of measurable metrics. These insights have helped retailers develop a more nuanced understanding of their shoppers’ needs and preferences in the context of the sales floor, highlighting the ways that floor design, display options, loss prevention techniques and more affect whether a sale is made.

With artificial intelligence (AI) tools — like shopper traffic monitoring and computer vision (CV) — retailers can transform shoppers’ movements and choices into digestible insights to unravel the mysteries of shopper motivations and better understand all the little decisions that go into a purchase. However, that knowledge brings with it a new challenge: doing something about it.

From Data to Decisions

Luckily, the “fix” is also a process that data analytics can help guide. Though many retailers rely on data to redefine their understanding of how shoppers make their decisions, that’s only the first step in the process. Data used in a privacy-focused way can also help retail leaders refine their approach to accommodate that changing understanding.

Using shopper behavior insights from various store locations, retailers can make data-driven decisions that help improve store efficiency, optimize labor, drive stronger profitability, and remove friction from the store experience — all of which can move the needle of customer satisfaction. By highlighting bottlenecks, points of friction, and stand-out, high-performing stores within a retailer's footprint, shopper behavior tools can help retailers prioritize their investments, build long-term improvement plans and ensure that any changes support overall business objectives.

A How-To: Charter Communications, Inc.

To better understand the power of this approach, let’s look at a real-world example. Charter Communications, which operates the Spectrum brand of connectivity services, recently completed a pilot analysis of shopper behavior to help enhance its in-store experiences at select Spectrum stores. Charter deployed shopper traffic and market intelligence data services to capture key shopper behavior and satisfaction metrics, then used available market intelligence data services to contextualize its findings.

The data and market intelligence allowed Charter to assess individual store performance against other stores in the country, region, state or area. Doing so highlighted areas of opportunity at each level to enhance customer experiences or store performances, all of which guided adjustments to merchandising, inventory availability, labor allocation and more.

Due to the successes of the pilot program, Charter Communications plans to expand its technology solutions by rolling out in-store traffic analytics solutions at more than 700 Spectrum stores across the United States over the next three years.

Leveraging Data for Success

The industry is changing rapidly, as are the technologies used to drive insights and shoppers’ preferences. Committing to ongoing investment and continual improvement will be key to success in the coming years. With emerging tech continuing to both shed light on customers’ needs and change them in turn, balancing progress and stability is likely to become even more difficult in the coming years.

The good news is that, in this instance, the poison and the cure are one and the same: data. Retailers that engage with data for both insights and improvements and commit to the process for the long term will find themselves well-positioned to recognize these trends, evaluate their impacts, and adapt their businesses accordingly.

Nick Pompa is the vice president and product general manager for shopper insights at Sensormatic Solutions, the leading global retail solutions portfolio of Johnson Controls.