The purpose is to transform the retail store into the brand hub for an ideal customer experience. But how? Brand experience.
Now, what is a brand experience? And why is it so important? See, what solidifies the brand in the market and ensures that it keeps thriving is the brand reputation. What values the brand upholds and the perception in the mind of the customer base.
But now as the new technological advances the customers, the need for human to human interaction has reduced. Good for those whose daily existence is no different than the quarantine existence. However, this convenient divide has made the good retail experience a luxury.
Now, this has made the retail experience space a double-edged sword. THE BEST PART? Every good thing becomes great. Is remembered and influences the brand perception, and footing in the market. The flip side being that everything subpar becomes an annoyance.
So now the retail space has become one of the most effective fronts for accurate brand building experience therefore requires that the retail store embodies the brand it represents, to the core.
Here are the steps that the retail store needs to master to make sure that when a potential customer enters the store. They without a doubt know that are becoming part of a family. The purpose of the ideal retail store experience is to serve as the connection between the customers and the brand. An emotional bond through the physical channel.
An Immortal Idea
The first step is to make the experience positively strengthen into the mind of the customer and to make sure that the retail store doesn’t tie itself to the physical product but to the idea that the brand or product represents.
Tying yourself to purpose is the difference between an “Electronics store” and a “space where comfort and convenience is a push of a button away.” Before designing the retail store to exemplify a specific aspect, comfort, convenience, and creativity or consciousness is best practice to commit to the core values of the company.
The commitment to the core values represented in every corner of the retail store would cause it to ascend beyond the physical space and cement in the customer’s mind as an experience and not just the memory of been there done that.
Story Worth Sharing
In times of uncertainty when anything can change at the moment’s notice. It is the stories that tie people together. Embodying the brand’s story would cause the customer base to tether itself to the brand through the story.
Also, patterns and stories affect the mind like music and in the end and that’s what the customer is going to remember. Wherever the brand’s story is concerned, consistency is your friend. As the story settles into the subconscious of the customer, soon they’d start to associate the store name to the story and would look for the name, looking past the physical store.
The Safe Haven
As the retail store flourishes, it becomes less of a place we go to look at stuff and more of a living entity. The brand avoids the products that it sells – casing brand loyalty. This makes the retail stores an extension of that trust and ventures into aspects of the human experience.
The retail store now becomes a hub for the brand and needs to uphold its tenants. Thus, consistency comes into play. Consistency in what depends upon the brand, for more creative establishment the customers would look for consistent change and what’s new, would be the draw. While more uptight establishment the consistency of order would be desired.
To Brand And, Beyond
The retail experience is concentrated at the retail store but it is not limited to it. Retail experience is not what the customer feels when they are at the store (However it is a big part of it) But it is also what the customer takes home with them, It’s How the customer staff interacts with the customer. How the issues after the sale are resolved. Sometimes, all it takes is one bad experience to make the customer turn to someone else.
But the store experience is not all about removing the negative but also about reinforcing the positive. To make sure that the customer understands that the brand (Represented by the retail store) is there for them at every turn. Every time the customer turns to the brand enters the store. It strengthens the customer-brand bond.
Convenience At Its Finest
Now taking a step back from the customer behaviour and take a look at the more concrete aspects of the retail store experience. This being the design. The layout. The sensory input that the customer is bombarded with from the moment they enter the store.
In short term, the customer would be more likely to remember the negative experiences. The long queues or the unclear markers to look for to get what they want. So, It’s the store’s responsibility to design and arrange the products in a favourable manner. Look into customer behaviour and design the layout for maximum engagement.
Here the store design can be further divided into two broad categories: One being the high-end store design. And the convenient store design.
The retail store can fall into any of these categories depending upon the brand. For more high-end brands which focus on luxury would benefit most from an exploratory design. In such a retail store, people enter looking for the next addition to their foray. Entering such a retail store is best to give the treasure hunt experience.
The other being the day to day needs retail store. The design being straightforward and utilitarian. The customer knows what they want and wants the fastest way to what they want. In this case, the best experience would be straightforward and convenient. Still, the store would benefit from intelligent design because there are only a few things as fickle as the desire of the customer. “Oh shiny!” the deep-rooted emotion in everyone.
What’s New?
No matter how good and effective something is. Over time it gets stale. The customer would engage with the retail store. An extension of the brand on basis of trust but over time change is necessary. Even with the establishments focused on order and security would need to incorporate the new leaps and bounds in technology to remain ahead of the competition.
These may include AI assistants. Or 3D maps for better navigation or pattern recognition so the customer would tack the store in the order that they’d need the products. No customer wants to enter a store and be back 10 years. (Unless that’s the intention) Brand loyalty would take the retail so far when the establishment can’t keep up with the rimes.
So, one sure way to give an acute retail experience to the customer would be to stay ahead of the curve. Stand out and stand tall. A high risk- high reward strategy as long as the brand doesn’t waver from its core purpose.
At the end what matters when it comes to delivering the ideal retail store experience would be making it more human. More candid. Rising above being a store and becoming a hub where the customer would go to solve their problems as well as to experience the brand.