By: Lisa Britton Poppler
With healthy predictions for holiday spending – as seen in growth forecasts during November and December between 6% and 8% by the National Retail Federation – and individuals shifting back to in-store shopping retailers must be prepared to deliver exceptional customer experiences. As these experiences can greatly impact holiday spend and ongoing loyalty.
For customer experiences, retailers should not only be focused on an individual’s interactions with store employees, availability of product, or product knowledge, but also the sights and sounds that shoppers experience. These experiences of the senses can create lasting impressions and emotions that can impact one’s perception of and loyalty to the brand. So, with marketing and visual merchandizing teams creating the vision of the right atmosphere in-store and with window displays how do they ensure their expectations become a reality?
Targeted Communication to Frontline teams
Corporate teams must ensure that their vision is seamlessly communicated to the store teams for timely and accurate execution. The right communication tool will allow corporate teams to target their communications to the appropriate individuals, roles, teams, and locations to ensure expectations become an impactful reality.
Digital Visual Reviews
For visual merchandizing and store display project plans include detailed task steps and require store teams to include photos in their submissions of completion. These photos can then be digitally reviewed, by management, to ensure that throughout the setup process brand standards are being met across all locations.
Maintain two-way communications with frontline teams for ongoing support
Avoid top-down communications with front-line teams and provide them a simple and effective two-way communication tool for questions or feedback. Furthermore, ensure that correct workflows are setup so that the questions or issues are being directed to the appropriate individual and/or department. This can help reduce delays in setup and increase timely responses, and time to resolution, throughout the busy season.
Happy Holidays from the Opterus team!
