A friend of Retail247, we’ll call him Jim, recently told me the story of how, returning from the US, he was fortunate to be upgraded to First Class. Being his first time (no, it wasn’t Virgin Airlines) the flight attendant was particularly helpful and welcoming. Early on she ascertained that our friend did not wish to sleep on the flight so there was no need to make up the bed. Within a short space of time, however, he was sound asleep, only to wake up on the other side of the Atlantic in bed!
Great service of course, but our friend rather nervously checked his state of dress (or undress) beneath the duvet.
Knowing your customers and servicing their needs (quite rightly) are at the heart of retail businesses today. It is a common goal for a retail organisation to be passionate about their customers, and to aim to delight them with exceptional service. There is a question of degrees though and where is the line between attentiveness and overly interfering in the customer journey?
In the traditional retail sense of a sales assistant asking a customer ‘can I help you?’ on the shop floor, there are many responses but that approach from a cold start can be extremely effective if done in the right way depending on the context. Without empathy or feeling for the customer or perhaps repeated for a third of fourth time it can be irritating.
More recent technology is giving retailers the opportunity to interact with their customers, and service their needs, in a more direct way. Beacon technology for example will facilitate the offer of relevant promotions depending on where the customer is located in the store. It’s still early days but this will need to be applied carefully to avoid over-stepping the line of appropriate attentiveness into intrusion.