Use retail intelligence to polish customer experience

There are two facts which all aspiring retailers accept as gospel. One, that loyalty programmes are vital for attracting customers back to the store. In the age of customers with short attention span, loyalty plans are necessary to impress upon shoppers. Secondly, there is plenty of retail data coming every day for retailers in the form of customer buying, stock movements, promotion success, etc.

The point is, most retailers ignore the fact that both these areas of retailing are synergetic, and help push the other to higher levels. In the age of omnichannel operations, keeping separate applications for loyalty and retail analytics only increases a retailer’s inputs in technology and man-hours.

Plus, making sense of the mountain of data takes too long and by the time the synthesised analytics come, it’s already yesterday. What retailers need is an all-in-one retail management application that integrates the loyalty application to the data-cruncher.

The truth is, by utilising modern integrated analytics and dashboards, retailers today can boost customer loyalty by creating a truly personalised shopping experience, which tailors promotions to current buyer preferences. What happens is, promotional emails do not end up in the trash folder and are used proactively. This happens when the retailer starts to leverage his already-accrued loyalty and sales data into analytics.

Retailers can use in-store analytics to draw predictive dashboards and interactive charts. For example, loyalty data of customers across the board can be used to see periods of activity, preference of products, what products have been ‘clubbed’ together, what offers have been snapped up recently, etc. If the retailer has an online presence, the omnichannel retail management suite can crunch data from what products have the customers have spent time on and pitch offers tailored accordingly.

Retailers can also track the frequency with which customers use every channel to prioritise reach-out (offers, notifications, promotions, etc.) via their preferred media.

Using retail reporting and analytics, retailers can create successful customer loyalty and retention programs as well as personalize consumer interactions in sustainably profitably ways. Moreover, retailers can ensure consistent customer treatment and brand exposure across all channels.

Omnichannel-ready iVend Retail addresses all the above concerns in a single suite of applications. iVend Retail’s integrated customer loyalty portal engages customers to keep track of their loyalty points, and encourages them to apply to the store again. Besides that, iVend Loyalty also meshes with iVend eCommerce, creating the perfect cross-channel shopping experience for the customer. The iVend Reporting and Analytics absorbs all retail data and relays clear, uncluttered and actionable insights to the retail management on demand.

This is the way Loyalty and Analytics can be synergised to give a retailer sustained profitability from long-term (and loyal) customers.