The concept of ‘focusing on your customer’ has been part of the corporate vocabulary for many years. For decades retailers were either competing for market share, or they were competing to improve quality and reduce costs. Competition is focused around customer relationships and using customer information proactively - thus capturing customer value.
In a recent PA survey our retail clients rated high customer retention rates and increased profitability as two of the most important benefits of a customer focused approach. There is clear evidence that retaining customers leads to higher profits, and shareholder value.
There has been a realisation that customers are a business asset and not simply a commercial audience. There has also been an acceptance that there is a trade-off between delivering and extracting customer value.
Many retail organisations have tried to derive benefit from a customer focus, but few have succeeded. For some, the concept has not widely been accepted; for others it has mainly been driven by IT, and little attention has been paid by Sales and Marketing. It has been a question of resource - changing the focus of a retail organisation can consume significant resource and investment, and some have found this has been ‘a step too far’.
However, competitive advantage will be driven by those organisations that are genuinely able to, and succeed in meeting and exceeding customer interests, needs and expectations in real time.
PA's retail experts can help you in these key customer focus activities:
Managing customer data more effectively
Generating customer insight
Segmenting customers
Building innovation
Building a compelling customer experience
Building effective communications
Creating loyalty
