Building Loyalty through Brick-and-Mortar Retail

The Business of Fashion Podcast

The Business of Fashion

Fashion & Beauty, Business, Arts

4.6 • 770 Ratings

🗓️ 27 August 2021

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A panel of experts discussed strategies for making physical retail a strong service touchpoint that builds brand loyalty.

Shopping is evolving. Consumers now experience brands across channels: they may be introduced to a brand on social media, try on its products at a store, and then make a purchase online. Or, they may browse online and then pick-up an item in-person. For retailers, that means a sale can happen anywhere, at any time.

This week on The BoF Podcast, our retail correspondent Cathaleen Chen is joined by Adam Levene, founder of digital customer service platform Hero; Elyse Walker, boutique and concept store owner; and Dan Schoening, Nordstrom’s vice president of business strategy and operations to discuss how retailers can service customers in a way that creates a seamless, individualised experience across retail channels.

Beyond conversions, a strong digital strategy can serve as a way to get customers into a store and foster further engagement, according to Levene. “It’s all about giving that customer that comfort, and that desire and reason to actually head into store, having that confidence knowing the item will be there, it’s going to be in their size, and they can be greeted by the stylists they connected with online,” says Levene.
Convenience can actually drive business efficiency. Nordstrom links inventory across all markets, so that “customers have access to all that product, way more choice, and way more control around how they get it,” says Schoening. Then, the company provides easy access points for pick-up and returns, which, in turn, allows Nordstrom to get merchandise back into its ecosystem to sell again.
Building a lasting relationship with customers is essential to success. To do so, retailers should have store associates focus on building trust with kindness and authenticity. “If you pressure your sales team to hit certain numbers and it’s not authentic and it’s not organic, you might have a good day, but that hurts the long-term potential of your business,” says Walker.

How to Build Customer Loyalty

5 Ways to Boost Customer Loyalty

How to Build a One-on-One Relationship With Your Customer

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode of Inside Fashion is brought to you in partnership with PayPal, the most trusted
0:05.2	Buy Now Pay Later brand, according to a recent survey, which gives merchants access to PayPal's
0:10.6	403 million users worldwide. Learn more at PayPal.com slash pay later enterprise.
0:19.2	I still strongly, strongly believe in touch and feel and customer interaction.
0:25.6	So I think our jobs right now are just finding that balance between the digital world
0:30.6	and the touch and feel in-store experience.
0:33.6	We talk about making digital personal and that goes both ways in that it's not just about within the digital flow on our websites and on our apps.
0:42.0	That's actually about empowering our people with tools to also drive digital sales and make them feel special and unique as part of the connection between what's happening in the physical environment, what's happening in the digital environment.
0:53.0	This kind of real magical moment where you connect online first and you end up going into the
0:58.0	boutique and connecting in person.
1:00.0	I think it has to be a reason to facilitate for that customer to want to make it into the store
1:05.0	or the boutique.
1:09.0	Hi, this is Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Business of Fashion. Welcome to the BOF podcast. It's Friday, August 27. There's no doubt that shopping has evolved. Consumers now experience brands across channels. They may be introduced to a brand on social media, try on its products in a store, and then make a purchase
1:28.8	online, or they may browse online and then pick up an item in person. For retailers, this means
1:34.2	that a sale can happen anywhere at any time, which makes it all the more important that retailers
1:39.6	are thinking about bricks and mortar strategically and staying agile in the face of changing customer
1:45.6	behavior. This week on the Bof podcast, BOF's retail correspondent Kathleen Chen is joined by Adam Levine,
1:52.7	founder of Digital Customer Service Platform Hero, boutique and concept store owner Elise Walker,
1:58.5	and Dan Schoen, Nordstrom's vice president of business strategy
2:01.7	and operations to discuss how retailers can service customers in a way that creates a seamless,
2:08.0	individualized experience across retail channels.
2:11.2	Here are Adam Levine, Elise Walker, and Dan Schoen, Inside Fashion.
	...

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