What a great customer journey looks like

Know Your Customer

At Proximity Insight, we help retailers understand customer behaviour: to record it, measure it, and above all scale it. We help associates identify which customers to contact, when, and how, but we leave the communication content to them to ensure it remains personal. Everything is recorded and reportable, meaning the most effective strategies can be identified, as we link sales back to outreach events. By using technology to do the heavy lifting such as customer segmentation, customer profitability analysis, and automating tasks associated with outreach such as birthday reminders, product recommendations, and even a simple thank you, associate time is freed up so that top-level service can be offered not only to your most loyal customers but to several segments below as well.

Let’s consider a customer journey when the correct technology is in play

Sarah purchases in a store as a first time customer of the brand. Two days later, the associate who served her, Mark, checks his daily task list in the Proximity Insight platform, and one of those tasks is to take the “welcome” email template and send an email to Sarah. It’s branded, but the content comes from him. He may mention how the weather is considerably better today than the day she came in, because he has context that software doesn’t, and he also recommends a couple of items that he believes would be to her taste based on her previous visit: he knows what garments she bought, and just as importantly, which ones she took into the dressing room but decided against and the reasons why. Sarah, delighted to receive an email from Mark which is in refreshing contrast to a generic mailing list, clicks one of the bags he recommended, visits the online store and makes a purchase.

This second purchase can be attributed directly to Mark’s efforts providing the brand with visibility over what works and what doesn’t, but if it doesn’t happen the recommendation still exists. She may visit the store the following week, with the intention to see the bag for herself, and the associate on hand will be able to see what she bought prior and what was recommended, helping the process go that much smoother. Perhaps the bag is great, but Sarah would rather think on it a little. The associate helping her this time adds it to a virtual basket along with a bulky coat that she likes, and pushes it to sync with her online wishlist. When she gets home, Sarah logs in views the basket and checks out from the comfort of her sofa, with the coat and bag delivered to her home shortly after.

Now, imagine that scenario without unity between on and offline interactions. Sarah would feel very differently about her brand experience and Mark may feel less inclined to help assist an online purchase if he knows it can’t be attributed to his interactions with Sarah. We know, through our results with luxury retailers that customer experience for both customer and brand are a top priority.

As one of our favourite quotes by Seth Godin says, “You’re either remarkable or invisible. Make a choice.”

Header photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash