As the Christmas peak approaches, retailers must hone their mobile-centric strategies to drive sales and loyalty – but, what are key strategies that drive an exemplary mobile experience? Here are three key mobile strategies from Poq to help, and three more specific to in-store – six of the best, if you are omnichannel.
So what’s hot in mobile this peak?
Informative onboarding
In search of the best deals on the run up to and throughout the holiday sales, there is an influx of first-time downloads of retailer apps. This presents retailers with a golden opportunity to maximise their sales by fully demonstrating the value their app offers to the shoppers’ experience.
By adding onboard screens to promote specific or exclusive features, retailers can readily demonstrate the value their app can contribute to shoppers’ experience at the app-store stage or once downloaded. This simple thing can do wonders for making your app stand out enough to be downloaded – and used.
Personalisation
Shoppers expect a personal experience on mobile, but also personalisation that can make shopping aligned with their preferences, needs, and desires.
Here, retailers need to take advantage of push notifications to send customers updates on changes in stock, sales prices, or items left in a digital basket, thus driving sale opportunities and reducing cart abandonment rates.
In fact, app experience should be as personal as possible and should, through push messaging, reach out where possible to the shopper. Most people don’t use 75% of the apps on their phone more than once. To become a regularly used app you need to not only offer a great experience, but keep giving shoppers a reason to come back.
Live-chat services
Retailers need to offer live-chat services via mobile to boosts problem-solving on-a-go.
A LiveChat Customer Service Report 2018 suggests that during the peak months including November and December see the highest usage of live chats on smartphones, surging by 9.8% in comparison to the rest of the year.
But, the report’s figures suggest that customers satisfaction with the service has dropped by 2.8%, standing at 83.54% despite more customers wanting to use the live chat service, up by 8.29% in 2017 from 2016. This suggests that retailers must raise the bar in advancing the technology to match the customer demand this peak season.
Szymon Klimczak, chief marketing officer at LiveChat, says: “Tech companies have one of the longest average handle times, but because they solve most issues in one touchpoint, they lead the pack when it comes to customer satisfaction.”
Three key approaches to maximise in-store sales
Nick East, chief executive officer Zynstra comments on the key best practices that retailers should consider leading up to the Christmas peak to maximise their in-store environments: “As shoppers dive into the Christmas sales season, they will be expected to maximise their shopping experiences while in-store. For retailers to meet their shoppers’ in-store goals, there is an in-store technical chasm that will need to be crossed, especially during this peak-traffic season.”
He continues: “There are three things retailers need to get right moving into the Christmas
sales season: a frictionless customer buying experience to make customers happy; an agile infrastructure to make frictionless buying experiences possible; and reduced costs to contribute to the business today. The retail battleground has moved to the store where retailers and customers meet face-to-face.”
“In the past, the all-consuming attention on the online battleground has come at the cost of the store. However, recent trends point to the renewed importance of the store for retailers, with leading retailers such as Alibaba and Amazon investing significant sums in developing their physical presence with acquisitions such as Wholefoods and Hema, as well as Walmart working to bring in unique technological components into the store highlighting that the technology enablement of the store is paramount to future success.”
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