Panic buying. Track pants. The terms ‘unprecedented times’ and ‘social distancing’. Remember 2020?
Considering the trash-fire that was last year, it’s unsurprising that retailers are wary when it comes to investing in new technology, as we discovered through our Retail HackGames.
Why? Well, it could come down to a number of things. The price for one, as well as the disconnection between what a large multi-national retailer can achieve, and what’s possible for the up-and-comer.
Undoubtedly, wariness from retailers has resulted in tech providers being tragically under-utilised. Let’s just say, when considering they offer reliable solutions to prepare for a post-COVID landscape, concern from retailers makes about as much sense as panic-buying toilet paper.
We sat down for a chat with each tech provider from the Retail HackGames to introduce them to you, the retailer. After giving them a problem statement about a vendor affected by the pandemic, we asked about their solution. And we sought advice on behalf of retailers considering a new tech investment. Yep, we’ve basically done all of the hard work for you!
Discover why we launched the Retail Revival series here.
About Omneo:
Omneo provides a full customer experience toolkit for brands to deliver exceptional multichannel customer experiences.
What does that mean? Well in layman’s terms, they help retailers integrate their customer-facing and back-end systems, eliminating the need to manage multiple platforms and programs.
Problem Statement: Introducing Jack.
Jack is an avid sports sneaker collector and owns his own boutique, FreshKickz. His online store is designed specifically for the sneaker-obsessed. We’re talking from the person that has one too many pairs in their wardrobe, to collectors who drop thousands of dollars on a single pair.
Although he loves introducing newbies into the world of sports sneakers, he understands that the bulk of his revenue comes from the 5% of buyers in his collector segment.
As a business owner, Jack’s main concerns throughout 2020 have included:
- Unstable foot traffic
- Consumer sentiment
- Store Hygiene (Retail Recovery Protocols)
Let’s get chatting to Omneo!
MI Academy: Welcome to the Retail Recovery Series! Let’s jump straight in. How might a solution such as Omneo help a retailer like Jack?
Omneo: Something Omneo can enable is to understand who Jack’s best customers are. Then, reward them proportionately to their patronage. Say you know that there are fanatic level segments. Omneo can make sure they’re getting tagged as a VIP when customer support requests come in. Move them to the front of the support queue.
You can create a wish list – and unlock premium features for this particular segment of buyers. A buyer can create a wish list online. This can then translate to in-store so that when those VIP buyers come in, they’ve got a selection of sneakers ready to try. Omneo lets you go above and beyond, because you’ve got that data and information ready.
MI Academy: You need your data organised to be able to use functions in Omneo. So what advice would you give to retailers like Jack who want to invest in a platform like Omneo… but their data is in total disorganisation? Where can they start?
Omneo: I would start by collating teams. Find collaborative forward-thinking professionals in the team that want to get their hands dirty. CRM manager, technology officer, lead marketers, those types of roles. Get them all together in a room and plan a strategy and identify the use cases. Because sweeping it under the rug is not going to be a long term strategy.
Formulate a team of leads that can own the project. Then, break it down into smaller use cases so that they can understand what the current data hygiene is. And then model a perfect customer profile from there.
You don’t need to be data-heavy, you don’t need to have the skills. You just need to understand what the customer journey is. As long as you understand what you’ve done, you can map out your macro-micro customer journeys.
MI Academy: Jack’s main concerns are store hygiene, consumer sentiment, and unstable foot traffic. How might Omneo assist Jack through these areas?
Omneo: We have contact tracing as part of our online profile offering, to help with store hygiene.
For unstable foot traffic, we allow customers to pick up where they last left off online, in-store. That means there are fewer barriers there. All the work and behaviours customers have gotten used to during lockdown can translate to in-store.
Consumer sentiment is a big one. We have NPS and C-STAT scores built into our platform. We have visit receipts for when people do go back into stores. Customers get a receipt of actions undertaken, like ‘we put XYZ in the changeroom for you’. They can then go back and complete that transaction online.
That movement between worlds breaks the foot traffic barrier, and can monetise non-converting foot traffic making what you have more valuable – think of it as an “abandoned cart” sequence for the real world.
Retailers get into this discounting hell, and tie themselves in knots with discounting. There are other ways that you can recognise and reward customers without it being a spray and pray approach. Things like visit receipts provide value in other ways without impacting the bottom line.
MI Academy: Can you talk a little about how important retailers owning their own data is?
Omneo: Some brands take the easy way out by selling that owned customer asset to third parties. They’re going to find it hard to scale as a business because they’re going to have to keep paying third parties for the attention of their customers.
So, by investing in the known customer asset, you’re investing in your brand, with a long-term view. And that means you can contact those people whenever it’s appropriate. You can change the diversity of your loyalty program whenever it’s appropriate. And you’re not going to have your customer information tied up in a third party. What if that third party goes out of business one day? You’re left twiddling your thumbs and starting from scratch.
The differentiator with Omneo is that we try and only take data that is going to be of use to the consumer. So we encourage our brands to only ask questions if they’re providing some value in return. We don’t care about data if it’s not going to affect the experience you’re going to have as a customer.
MI Academy: How do you think Omneo will assist with the survival and revival of Australian retail?
By allowing customers to own their data you’re going to be on the right side of history as these cultural shifts are undertaken. And Omneo allows retailers to be transparent about the data they have and lets customers update, change, or remove that data.
We’re seeing macro trends around sustainability and privacy requirements and third-party data. Having data always accessible to the customer sets you up with a longer-term view of the relationships with your customers.
MI Academy: New tech implementations and investments can be daunting. What advice would you have for retailers scared to make the jump?
Omneo: I don’t want to be very harsh but the repercussions of not moving are worse. IBM estimated that bad data cost businesses $3 trillion last year. And we’re already seeing retailers have become firefighters. If it’s not on fire, they’re not doing anything about it. That is not going to cut it anymore. So the repercussions of not doing anything is the retailer becoming non-existent.
Are you facing similar challenges to Jack?
Have you been thinking about your customers’ data? Do you want to get out of discounting hell? Send your questions to us!
Where to find Omneo:
Website: here
LinkedIn: /omneocx