Framing the Retail Challenge

The rapid shift to ecommerce has catapulted an entire industry more than four years into the future in just under four months. It's a windfall for marketplaces, retailers and consumer-facing brands eager to be the "brand-in-the-hand" of today's digital-first consumers. However, the surge in online interactions has escalated consumer expectations for customized communications, raising the experience bar. Brands and marketers need to get better at anticipating and responding to new consumer needs and preferences. From web to mobile and in-person interactions, research firm McKinsey observes, consumers don’t just want personalization, they demand it. According to Forrester, 77% of consumers have chosen, recommended, or paid more for a brand that provides a personalized service or

experience. And 76% of customers get frustrated when they don't receive personalized notifications.

Brands using hyper-personalization have realized conversion rates of up to 250% higher compared to one-size-fits-all campaigns — this means 250% more revenues.

If brands don’t move towards personalization, they’re missing out on a tremendous opportunity to retain loyal customers that demand a better experience. Consider that with a solid retention rate, revenue compounds over time. The longer you keep customers happy, the more valuable they are to your business. Fulfilling this ambitious mandate requires brands to rethink how they leverage customer-centric insights to provide advice, assistance, and inspiration aligned with

consumers' individual context and current needs.

To help marketers reframe how they drive customer retention, CleverTap has developed the Fit for the Future of Retail Framework, a strategic blueprint for retailers, brands, and marketplaces to execute a holistic strategy for customer retention and growth.

Framing the Retail Challenge

Four Business Objectives

1) Increase new user retention

How: Onboard them, get them plugged into your brand, map out

their journey, show them the value of your service

2) Increase customer engagement

How: Get them actively using your app, serve them oers they can’t

resist, move them to their first purchase

3)Increase order transactions

How: Entice them with cross-sell and upsell opportunities, get them

into a purchasing habit

4)Reduce customer churn

How: Win back disengaged customers, analyze why they drop o,

optimize the user journey to bypass problematic areas

Fit for the Future of Retail

We distilled our qualitative and quantitative research into the four main business objectives that every retail brand reaches for. And we lift the lid on the tactics needed to reach those objectives plus the metrics you need to measure progress at specific steps in the journey. In addition to grouping the objectives, the framework oers retailers a more nuanced view of the customer journey and a roadmap to increase transactions and retention.

The model breaks each objective down into layers and outlines the actions and experiences retailers must enable or enhance to influence

behavior, remove friction, and drive positive outcomes for all stakeholders.

It narrows down what retailers must do to motivate customers to move through the stages and — ultimately — increase customer lifetime value.

Above all, the Fit for the Future Framework opens our eyes to the model and the mindset retailers must embrace to increase the kind of meaningful engagement that leads to increased transactions and customer loyalty.

It’s important to understand that the framework is also a continuum, ranging from low-value to high-value actions. Customers may traverse this spectrum rapidly within the space of a few sessions/interactions or remain stubbornly stuck in a low-engaged state for days, or months. Understanding the tactics needed to remove friction and nudge customers to progress will separate the retail leaders from those left behind.

Increase New User Retention

Increasing new user retention is essential for long-term success. You’ve done the work of

acquiring them, now the job is to ensure they keep using your app within the first month of

download. The six tactics below show you how.

1) Make onboarding flow effectively

2) Optimize onboarding experience

3) Anonymous to named users New users to purchasers

4) New users to purchasers

5) Analyze user lifecycle

6) Identify valuable acquisition sources

Increase Customer Engagement

By increasing customer engagement, you move customers from casual users to regular users,

ensuring steady growth for your brand. But how do you build app usage into a habit?

The nine tactics below.

- Experiment with in-app Personalization

- Convert inactive users to active

- Serve the right content

- Research user browsing habits

- Celebrate brand occasions

- Celebrate User milestone

- Create excitement around major sales

- Engage them through remarketing

- Nudge users based on psychographics

One top tip for increasing customer engagement? Deliver targeted and personalized communication at the right time in the customer journey. This will maximize coupon redemption and, ultimately, conversions. Unifynd, an enterprise SaaS retail-tech business that enables brands to manage their entire customer journey across oine and online channels, reports its current coupon conversion rate stands at a whopping 83%. It achieved this by launching coupon programs that are

customized based on user preference and availability. Additionally, by sending targeted communications for coupons oered by specific brands, they’ve seen a 44% increase in sales in just one month. Overall, Unifynd has helped malls drive sales of $1.3 million using targeted coupons.

Increase Order Transactions

For your brand to grow not just in user base but in customer lifetime value as well, you have to

move customers from being casual users to loyal superfans. And to get them there, you’ve got

to persuade them to increase their order transactions.

- Target users in geographic vicinity

- Lock in users through loyalty program

- Reduce cart abandonment

- Send back-in-stock campaigns

- Analyze top & underperforming categories/brands

- Win back price sensitive users

- Cross-sell products

-Promote oers from aliates

- Oer personalized recommendations

Reduce Churn

- Optimize onboarding experience

- Anonymous to named users

- Identify valuable acquisition sources

- Analyze user lifecycle

- New users to purchasers

- Make onboarding flow eectively

This is a Partnered Post

First Published:Apr 6, 2022 6:26 PM IST