The Customer Journey: 3 ways to avoid an unpleasant shopping experience

From online shopping to paying for items, the customer journey is fraught with difficulties. Here are 3 annoying situations that happen all too often in the customer’s journey that can be avoided.

#1 – Avoid long lines with new technology 

This is probably the most common irritant; the checkout can be long and tedious. Now you can avoid the long and arduous payment process for your customers by equipping your registers with mobile payment terminals, Apple pay, E-Wallets, and “Tap” features. In the coming years, we can also expect to see more and more payment by mobile phone as it is the digital extension of the consumer acting as a third hand!

Biometric payment systems are also booming. MasterCard has developed an application that uses “selfie” facial recognition technology that allows consumers to validate a payment on their cell phone. Mastercard is also currently testing a bank card with an integrated fingerprint sensor. As for the Chinese giant Alibaba, they are focused on the development of a secret agent style payment by retinal identification!

#2 – Avoid the disappointment of product unavailability with Click & Collect 

According to a study by Quantcast, seven out of ten consumers go on the web to learn about their future purchases from the start of their online journey. Consumers like to compare products, prices, payments, and delivery methods. But now customers are looking to be able to collect an item in-store by reserving it online ‘Click & Collect’. Unfortunately, it happens very often that the item is no longer available once the customer arrives at the store. The reason for this inconvenience is that the item in question has not been taken out of stock.

In order to avoid this unfortunate situation that can harm your image, a solution exists: to install software with a connected commerce platform. Thanks to the ‘Click and Collect’ services, you permanently remove an inconvenience for the customer! The availability of the selected item online is verified in real time and allows the consumer to pick up their purchase with peace of mind.

#3 – Avoid out of stock by proposing a solution with Clienteling 

The customer wants a simple and consistent shopping experience. Item references, prices, and promotions must be the same online as in store to make their shopping journey seamless.

Also, when an item is out of stock online, retailers must offer alternatives to consumers: when will the item be available again? Is it available in another store? In store, it should be the same. The vendor must be able to offer an alternative solution to the customer. For example; the sales rep can tell when the item will be available again, find a store that has the item in stock and reserve it, order it online for delivery in the store or at home, or find an alternative item in case of a stock out. Sales rep interaction with the client plays an essential role, especially since nine out of ten purchases are made in store.

New Clienteling tools are now available as well allowing Sales reps to establish an ultra-personalized relationship to your brand’s customer base. Among other things, they will be able to offer customers alternatives, or up-sell linked items by consulting their purchasing history.

All these innovations facilitate the customer journey by eliminating unfortunate situations likely to distance the consumer from your brand whether online or at the point of sale.

Don’t have a true omnichannel shopping journey? Contact us today!

About Techni-Connection

Techni-Connection is a reseller of 3 POS softwares in Canada (Yourcegid Retail, VisualTouch, Retail Management Hero), addressing today’s evolutions and needs. New features are constantly added to the systems (Clienteling, eCommerce, Click & Collect, SaaS, Mobile-POS) to match omni-channel strategies and personalizing the customers shopping experience.

Techni-Connection delivers cost-effective IT solutions to companies of all sizes. With its 24/7/365 helpdesk support system, TCI responds quickly and efficiently to customers problems and provides on-site support. TCI’s strong in-house technical team is also complimented by a network of 150+ certified IT experts across North America.