Your shoppers are using their phones and tablets in your stores, and that's a good thing. But don't forget how important it is to ensure your sales associates are also equipped with the power of mobile devices.
Today's consumers are more knowledgeable than at any time in history. With just a few clicks, they have access to detailed product information, competitive pricing, and user reviews of the items stocked on your shelf. At a minimum, your sales associates should be armed with just as much information. You don't want shoppers to have a conversation with your associates and realize they actually have more information than they do about your products.
Three main benefits of providing mobile devices to your on-the-floor staff include: customer identification, detailed product information, and suggestive selling for basket expansion. One of the top priorities for retailers in 2019 and heading into 2020 is providing a personalized experience for their in-store shoppers to keep up with the expectations heightened by the online experience. Sales associates can have conversations with your customers while they're still browsing, which gives them a perfect opportunity to use mobile devices to capture their information and bring up additional information about past purchases and overall customer data. With the right clienteling app, this can drive significant benefits towards making the customer feel as though they are known, valued, and being given a curated shopping experience with offers tailored to their specific behaviors.
Second, given how much information customers know about products, it's imperative that your own associates are at par and exceeding these shoppers when it comes to being able to articulate product differentiators. Giving these employees an in-depth view into your products, including all SKU variances and the ability to locate the inventory in your store or via other fulfillment centers will help increase conversion.
Finally, associates with mobile tools that use machine learning or other algorithms to identify the best suggestive sell or add-on products will drive an increase in basket size. More than just "if shopping product X then offer product Y", modern tools take past consumer history (purchases, browsing, social media likes) and combines it with your own product lifecycle processes to help identify promotions and products to ensure customers not only feel good about the purchases they're making, but will also drive them to add complementary products and services to their baskets.
Every single one of your shoppers are walking into your store equipped with immense retail knowledge at their fingertips. Make sure that you're also harnessing this knowledge and providing enhanced mobile tools so your sales associates can truly be value-adds vs. being a distraction to your customers.
If you want to learn more about retail industry best practices around sales associate mobility, contact us to find out how we can help identify the right strategy and solutions to drive a greater customer experience for your own stores.