Assessing & Enhancing In-Store Customer Experience
Way before the corporate world was introduced to us, before presentations and cadence calls occupied our evenings, trips to the local market with our moms or visiting the nearby city center with friends graced our days. Surely a lot of us recall the bustle of a popular store on a weekend or the aroma of a bakery as we walked past them. We may not remember what it was that was bought, but snippets of our shopping experiences through the years stay and we carry those into the shopping trips of today.
Store experience, we have noted, is what makes or breaks a repeat purchase or store return. As fashion retail consultants, a chunk of our brain is always trying to answer the question “How do I help my client improve their offline store experience?”
While some of us certainly know the theoretical answer to the above question, what we really wanted to do was find a playbook to achieve this abstraction with practical, incremental steps. We wanted clear definitions, boundaries, and an exhaustive list.
As we navigate our way through the retail jungle as consumers, we realize that our observations and experiences are an important supplement to our knowledge and research of retail customer experience. But as consultants, another realization is the fact that these observations can only go so far. To truly understand (and apply) the rules of store experience enhancement, we needed data, data and data.
Apart from a plethora of sources filled with studies, hypotheses, and ideas, we’ve conducted our own research where we visited more than 60 fashion retail stores in 4 Tier 1 cities. We also explored more than 15 Tier 1/2 domestic cities and 4 major international cities from an observational standpoint to understand the current state and best practices of retail store experience. Our research clearly showed the gaps in Indian retail experience compared to our global peers, and though readiness is always a consideration, the adoption of technology at unprecedented rates in other industries remains a cause for optimism.
Armed with both global and domestic data, we got right into the thick of it to answer the elusive question. A pivotal step in answering it happened to be measuring the actual quota of customer satisfaction a store could provide, which is where our “In-Store Customer Experience (CX) Maturity Assessment Model” comes into play. In layman terms, this model would help us measure the ability of a store to provide its customers satisfaction or a good customer experience.
The model itself is a scaled output of the spectrum of customer experience, ranging from levels 1–5. On the extreme left of the spectrum, Level 1 indicates the “basic” facilities and services that define the in-store experience for a customer. Consisting of building blocks like simple hangers and shelf displays combined with strictly cash payment option, Level 1 establishes the baseline of customer experience by catering to the bare minimum requirements to enable a purchase journey. However, at the opposite extreme of the spectrum, Level 5 addresses the best of what the retail world has to offer. Keeping “customer delight” at the forefront, Level 5 intends to address the concerns and needs of both the customer of today and of the future, integrating state-of-the-art technology with 720 customer data, empowering the staff to build a seamless and immersive experience for the customers. The model takes into account the future trajectory of customer experience and captures use cases like customer-specific exclusive designing and Grab-and-go models which elevate the customer purchase journey.
“In-Store Customer Experience (CX) Maturity Assessment Model”
We developed this model from scratch & have focused on the fashion & beauty industry.
We minutely studied the customer journey of a typical store shopping trip and accordingly identified 3 broad phases of the customer journey- Discovery, Consideration and Order Fulfilment- where the experience of the shopper tends to be most affected. These phases are further categorized into sub-parts, termed as “attributes”. The entire model is built on the foundation of these pillars called “Customer Experience Attributes”.
Phases of Customer Journey:
Phase 1: Discovery phase is where the customer discovers the store and the products within, thereby being divided into what makes them want to enter the store (Store Attractiveness) and what helps them find products & eases their shopping process (Convenient Browsing).
Phase 2: Consideration phase is where the customer evaluates their shortlisted options and makes the decision to buy, and this phase is found to be crucial for purchase completion. It is thus divided into the customer making the right choice with the use of comfort and personalization services provided by the store (Effortless Evaluation) and incentives for purchase (Loyalty Programs).
Phase 3: Order Fulfilment phase is the last phase which is also divided into two attributes, easy & convenient billing/payment process (Quick & Hassle-free Checkout) and services provided by store after purchase completion (Post-Purchase).
While the above six attributes encase the customer journey, a hefty part of customer experience is owed to the quality and assistance of staff in the actual stores. Therefore, we have also reserved a spot in the model for “Staff Assistance” to account for this aspect of store experience.
To evaluate the customer experience throughout the journey in detail, we have further divided the Customer Experience Attributes into several factors termed as “Sub-attributes”. The performance or maturity of these sub-attributes must be improved to achieve the full potential of the respective attributes. For example, let us consider that the Attribute “Quick & Hassle-free Checkout” consists of five hypothetical sub-attributes- Checkout Options, Payment Options, X, Y and Z. Hence, a store must focus on these 5 sub-attributes to provide its customers the best, quick & hassle-free checkout experience that it can.
Evaluation Process:
As described earlier, the performance or maturity of the sub-attributes needs to be evaluated to understand the maturity of the entire store. For this, the sub-attributes are also given a weightage depending on their contribution to the attribute, and the performance of these sub-attributes is scored on a scale of 1–5 in ascending order of their contribution to customer experience. The sub-attributes will be scored from 1–5 (Level 1 indicates a basic “expected” customer experience, while level 5 indicates that the store has advanced or futuristic facilities that ensures the best in-class customer experience).
The weightage of each sub-attribute is then multiplied with the score assigned to it (1–5), and average of these values gives us the Current Attribute Store CX Maturity Level.
Note: The performance or maturity level of a sub-attribute is an assessment of a use case being solved rather than the use of a particular technology. E.g., Say we have an Attribute ‘A’ with sub-attributes A1, A2, A3 & A4. Level 4 of sub-attribute A2 is the use case ‘customer-sensing, intelligent & dynamic product display’. This can be achieved by both video screens (digital) and holograms (AR), both of which can be programmed to be intelligent and customer-sensing. Hence two technologies can achieve the use case of A2. Therefore, any store with this use case solved will stand to have their A2 performance scored as 4.
Evaluation Example:
Let’s consider the previous example of the attribute “Quick & Hassle-free Checkout” with 5 hypothetical sub-attributes- Checkout Options, Payment Options, X, Y and Z. Through research, we conclude that the sub-attributes have different importance from a customer experience perspective, hence the weightages given are 30%, 30%, 20%, 10% and 10% respectively.
Consider the first sub-attribute which is a quantification of the kind of checkout options offered by a store, where Level 1 indicates a conventional checkout counter with a cashier (the most basic), and level 5 indicates a store that offers Grab & Go (an advanced checkout system where the consumer grabs the product and walks out without the need to wait in line for scanning or checkout). The second sub-attribute is a quantification of the payment options available, ranging from Level 1 with means Cash- only payment, to Level 5 which allows for Crypto based/Pay Later payment options.
Similarly, X, Y and Z sub-attributes are defined.
If our client ABC scored “1” in Checkout options, “3” in Payment options, “2” in X, “4” in Y and “1” in Z, then the effective scores will be
Hence, ABC’s Current Attribute Maturity Level for Quick & Hassle-free Checkout = 2.1
After calculation of the current attribute maturity level, target maturity level for attributes as well as sub-attributes will be defined as per client’s requirement. Considering the same example as above, if the current attribute maturity level is 2.1 & the client wants to achieve a Level of 4 for Quick & Hassle-free Checkout, it means that the target maturity level for the attribute is 4. This brings us to the Capability Gap Analysis stage where we work with the client to come up with a High-Level Future State Vision. We then develop a strategy to reach that desired target state, prioritizing the tech initiatives needed to close that gap and then recommend a roadmap/timeline to accomplish the same.
The initiatives and roadmap are different, not just for different attributes but for different clients as well, as the path to their respective desired states will always differ owing to the diverse nature of visions and priorities.
The assessment model is but a snippet into the rabbit-hole that is enhancing store experience. We are constantly working towards securing and making it future proof — dynamic enough to withstand the changes in technology and the perception of experience in consumers’ minds. It will evolve over time but the overarching idea of providing a doable and bespoke canvas to retail clients remains.
We hope that this fills some of the gap that the absence of data and definition has made in this quality-driven endeavor. Our ultimate hope is to bring a sense of innovation in the murky waters of retail store experience and make clear the steps to go forward.
Please feel free to hit us up or show us any work that you find interesting in this area. It would be a pleasure to discuss the nuances of such, both as consultants and as retail consumers.
Co-authored by: Gloryna Dilbung & Ruchi Lathoria
Avantika (IIMC), Gloryna (IIMB) and Ruchi (IIMA) are Business Consultants under the Strategic Leadership Program (SLP) for Tata Consultancy Services in the IMEA region.
