Customer service is more than a friendly smile

Customer service is still key in retail, but it doesn’t have to be limited to personal contact with staff members. Increasingly, customers want technology to form part of their in-store experience.

Research conducted by Zebra Technologies Corporation found that shoppers are very interested in Wi-Fi and location-based in-store services such as mobile coupons (51%), shopping maps (45%) and staff assistance (41%). They also responded positively to self-help technology, agreeing that price checkers (67%), self-checkouts (58%) and kiosks (56%) improve the shopping experience.

The Global Shopper Study also identified that more than one-third of shoppers (34%) believe they are better connected to real-time information than in-store staff members. Meanwhile, 64% of shoppers would be willing to purchase more merchandise if they received better customer service and over half (52%) value retailers who use technology to make the shopping experience more efficient.

Nearly 2000 shoppers in the United States, Canada, Singapore, Australia, England, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, China, Japan and Thailand were surveyed in the research, which revealed that more than three-quarters (76%) of shoppers feel positive about shopping in stores. However, 52% of shoppers ‘show-roomed’ — looked at items in-store but purchased them online — although more than three in 10 shoppers would prefer to go to a retail store to pick up items purchased via online or mobile channels.

The study, designed to reveal the experiences and attitudes towards the use of in-store technologies to enhance customer satisfaction, provided retailers with insights into improving the customer experience. It revealed that 66% of out-of-stock incidents can be recovered by offering shoppers an immediate discount, while almost half of shoppers think that technology solutions are helping retailers enable and improve their shopping experience.

“As online and mobile shopping become more prevalent and accepted worldwide, the importance of the customer experience remains high — as noted by the majority of respondents who would buy more merchandise from retailers they believe provide better customer service. Mobile technology helps provide real-time visibility of product availability, flexible delivery and payment options — freeing retailers to focus on the shopper experience and delivering personalised service to customers,” said Nick D’Alessio, global retail solutions development, Zebra Technologies.

Nearly eight in 10 respondents are willing to share some level of information with retailers, but retailers rank low on the list of institutions that shoppers trust with personal data with only 5% reporting they completely trusted retailers. 64% of shoppers value retailers who give them flexibility to control how personal information is used to tailor experiences, while 48% are willing to share personal information if given a discount. 46% of respondents have downloaded retailer apps.