Driving Winter Sales

By taking the right steps, grocers can expect to see increased sales and repeat customers well into the coming year.

With the economy finally stabilizing and an overall increase in consumer spending projected to continue through the 2013 holiday season, grocers are in an optimal position to leverage customer-focused strategies for improved winter sales.

But to fully benefit from these opportunities, grocers need to transform their customers into active brand advocates who will sing their praises to friends and family. By enhancing the customer experience and ensuring that they differentiate themselves from the competition, grocers can form emotional bonds with customers and create an experience that consumers will want to talk about.

This busy shopping season — which consists of the time customers spend in stores before, during and after the holidays — is a critical period for grocers to increase visibility and further engage customers. By gaining insights into their customers’ current experiences and using that information to make noticeable changes, grocers can strengthen their current customers’ loyalty and gain new ones. If leveraged correctly, these opportunities can provide momentum for increased sales well into 2014.

Preparing for Winter

To turn shoppers into loyal brand advocates and increase winter sales this season, grocers need to prepare in several ways:

Exceed customer expectations. Everyone knows what it’s like to be pleasantly surprised. When you give your customers more than they expect from the run-of-the-mill grocery shopping experience, you build positive emotional connections. The holidays are the perfect time to tap into this resource. For example, you could have a friendly staff greeter at the door, or offer discount coupons on Christmas ham or festive table décor. Additionally, make sure your staf is engaged and working toward a collective goal. The attitude of your staff in the winter, both on the floor and at the checkout counter, can have a huge impact on customers’ experiences. By taking additional steps to ensure your customers are having exceptional shopping experiences, you stand out from other brands and make customers feel as though your brand truly cares.

Ask for customer feedback. Customer feedback is incredibly important when it comes to enhancing the customer experience. If you don’t understand who your customers are and what they deem most important, you can’t tap into the customer intelligence necessary to meet the needs of a diverse customer base. Ask your customers for feedback about their experience with your brand. Whether you offer online surveys via purchase receipt to be completed at home or in-store smartphone and tablet surveys for immediate feedback, this is an opportunity that grocers must not miss if they want to tap into the information needed to satisfy their customers’ holiday cravings.

Encourage customers to be social advocates. With 50 percent of consumers having tried a new brand due to a social recommendation (www.empathica.com/consumer-insights/wave-1-2012-key-trends/), online recommendations on social networks and online review sites are possibly the most valuable resource grocers have in the digital era. Once customers have completed your survey, remind them that they can also provide recommendations via Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and a number of other online sites and outlets. Social networks provide an incredible sense of camaraderie — people want to try what their friends, family and colleagues like. If your brand is in conversations on these social networks, you have a great opportunity for increased sales. These reviews will not only increase revenue for grocers, but they’ll also provide the basis for customer intelligence. When combined with survey feedback, this provides the foundation for grocers to provide what their customers want.

Acknowledge poor experiences and fix them. Fast. According to industry research, 85 percent of consumers have provided retailers with feedback — via surveys, phone or other sources — but fewer than half of those customers believe that their feedback is actually used to make improvements. The customer intelligence gained from surveys, social feedback and online recommendations provides grocers with an opportunity to deliver a consistent, enhanced brand experience across locations and market segments. Customer experience management (CEM) tools can provide that information and help you turn it into actionable insights about your customer base. When your customers see that you’re listening to their feedback, they’re far more likely to advocate consistently for your brand.

Grocers can depend on their customers to increase winter sales, but only if they take the necessary steps to turn their customers into loyal brand advocates. The combination of brand advocates increasing a store’s social presence and customers providing valuable feedback will help grocers both increase their online brand mentions and gather insights that can be used to maximize sales and draw new customers.

If the right steps are taken during the busy holiday season, grocers can expect to see increased sales and repeat customers well into the coming year.

By gaining insights into their customers’ current experiences and using that information to make noticeable changes, grocers can strengthen their current customers’ loyalty and gain new ones.