We read in this post that the physical store has a lot of life ahead as long as it is guided by an omnichannel strategy. Treating consumers in a coherent and harmonized way in all channels is, without a doubt, the new challenge of retail.
We are totally agreed! Says Alberto Molina, managing director of Retail at Accenture in Spain. And, how many times have we insisted on Flame at this point? The consumer is physical and digital at the same time, they buy online and offline indistinctly according to their convenience, therefore, in order to satisfy and retain him, we have no other choice: we have to make the leap to omnichannel. If a player until recently purely digital as Amazon is being introduced in the physical world (has already opened some pop-up store and some supermarket) will be for something …
The question is… How do we prepare to take that leap? The key is in the digital transformation. The retailer has to be able to capture all the possible data related to the sale and the behavior of the client and then be able to share that information among all its channels (off and online) and from there start to predict how it will behave the consumer.
The stores are no longer mere stores of products … They are places where experiences are provided to the user through new technologies (Internet of things, artificial intelligence, electronic labels …) All with one objective: to personalize the way we treat the client and make this treatment coherent and harmonized (Steve Dennis) in all channels.
The managing director of Retail at Accenture gives us three tips to achieve an omnichannel strategy.
- Use the data and take advantage of them. Today in a store, thanks to technology, we can obtain lots of data from our customers: how many enter, where they move, how many times they repeat, how long they are, how long they wait to be served, how much they spend, if they are men or women, their age, etc. This information is power and we must use it well, for example, sending hyper-segmented and personalized campaigns to our clients.
- Be scalable. If it works for you in a store, do not stay in the wow effect! you have to be able to take it to the rest
- Treat the client in a personal and coherent way, in all channels. We insist… The client wants a personalized service and wants it in all the channels, both in the physical store and online.
