When you invite 110+ retailers with host Juanita Neville Te-Rito, CEO of the RX Group, it’s always going to be a super-charged experience. We met to explore the changing face of retail and CX - the headline considerations, the sector decelerators and other reflections on the industry. From the keynotes, it is clear that the world's current climate particularly the Covid pandemic, geo-economic political factors and growing environmental concerns are having a big impact on the way people live and shop.
Juanita’s keynote was supported by presentations from Klarna (BNPL), Joots (customer engagement) and our CEO Tim Warren.
Juanita led us through what customers are demanding now - convenience, personalisation, inclusiveness and exclusivity across all channels with innovative experiences.
As a result, it is vital that retailers have a deep customer understanding and are creating frictionless experiences - in store as well as online. From lightning-fast returns, AI chatbots to deliver the best and fastest customer experience and new store formats, leading retailers are making an effort to meet and exceed customer expectations in order to gain their hearts and wallets.
The following factors all impact how we shop:
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- Value for money – shop around easily and quickly for the best price/value
- Ease and convenience – shop my way and when/how I want to
- Digital disruption – shop from any device, anywhere
- Working from home – ease of comfortable shopping
- International brands – access to all the big brands – they’re coming!
- Being hyper-connected – omnichannel, 24/7/365
- Health and wellness – happiness shopping
- Being a conscious consumer – being green matters
Key decelerators to the success of the retail sector include inflation, immigration, labour constraints, supply chain and geo-economic. And these are unlikely to change during 2023 – and longer.
In his presentation, Tim also confirmed the current state of the market and inspired retailers with the success story of Laybuy and their digital employee Hugo. With few months, Ambit has helped BNPL provider Laybuy increase CSAT by 3% thanks to Hugo, who has quickly become part of their customer service team. Available 24/7 on Laybuy’s website, Hugo now handles 70% of all queries and frees up customer service to work more closely with those customers who have complex queries that require specialised expertise.
In conclusion, it’s a challenging but also exciting time for retailers – the landscape is changing, fast. Yesterday’s excellence is tomorrow’s expectation… To keep up and keep ahead, retailers need to offer customers innovation, be hyper-connected, deliver conscious commerce, be immersive and be present - it’s all about CX.
