Customer Experience Mishaps: The Holiday Edition

With the new year are almost here, here are some tips to ensuring your customers feel that holiday cheer.

For many retailers, November and December are the most important months of the year.

According to the National Retail Federation consumers will have spent, on average, a total of $1,048 for items such as decorations, candy, gifts, and other purchases for themselves and their families by the time the holiday season comes to a close. This is higher than for any other occasion consumers spend money during the year.

Many of the sales that have occured during the 2019 holiday shopping season have been online. But know this: While consumers are certainly caught up in the holiday cheer, don’t expect them to brush it off if they have a poor online shopping experience.

For this month’s holiday season edition of our “CX Mishaps” series, our friend and “Marketoonist” Tom Fishburne brings to life the importance of real-time data and a true understanding of your customers.

1. Get your data in order because retailers most definitely need a complete view of their customers to ensure a seamless, continuous, and correctly sequenced customer experience.

2. Understand your customers, and the context behind their purchases, because it can make or break you this holiday season.

3. Retailers with buy online, pick up in-store fulfillment options (BOPIS) won Cyber Week, and with the holidays and new year upon us, retailers may want to think about how BOPIS could play into driving last-minute sales. Knowing which customers are more likely to use BOPIS is a competitive advantage.

4. The worst thing that can happen to a shopper this holiday season is a package that doesn’t arrive on time. And if you do expect delays, communication is key and can mitigate the pain.