Changing Customer Behavior in Retail

In today’s world, the biggest challenge for retailers is understanding who your customers are and then dealing with changing customer behavior.

In the last two decades, the customer shopping experience has changed. Previously, shoppers visited their favorite stores to purchase products they wanted from a limited selection. Today, with social media, mobile devices, ecommerce sites and more, the world has become smaller and more accessible to shoppers. Customers have a wider variety of product options at their fingertips and can choose the best options effortlessly and in real-time. Retailers are thus faced with the difficult task of responding to this behavioral change.

Retail can now be defined as anyone, purchasing anything, at any time, in any way. Whether you sell dresses, bank accounts, televisions, oil changes or whether you’re a brick and mortar, an ecommerce site, a hybrid – you’re in the retail business. With so many mixed messages on what makes customers click and businesses profitable, retailers are on shaky ground. The truth is, this situation might not stabilize in the foreseeable future.

So how can retailers fix the problem?

The greatest challenge for retailers today is to truly understand their customers and their everchanging behavior. Not just in theory, but to ingrain it in every business decision they make, now and forever. Leaders in the retail world should look at this challenge positively – as an opportunity and not a threat. Below are some steps they can keep in mind:

Invest in rich customer data

Leading retail brands know the importance of accessing, analyzing and interpreting customer data to zero in on where to focus their efforts. The goal should be to think like the customer. Data will be the means to help them utilize historical customer data to predict future behavior by investing in a powerful behavioral analytics platform.

Leverage the right skill set

Sometimes, even when a brand has access to abundant customer data, not interpreting it properly can lead to miscommunication in corporate content and marketing strategies. To avoid this kind of backfire, it is important to partner with skilled data scientists, developers, innovators and behavioral platforms to deeply analyze customer data and help provide actionable insights.

Know your customers more intimately

According to multiple research reports, there is a great disconnect between customers’ needs/expectations and organizational leadership. Companies and retail leaders sometimes get out of touch with real-world customer behaviors and problems and therefore can’t come up with appropriate solutions. This gap needs to be bridged.

How can OSG help you understand customer behavior?

OSG is the catalyst for customer-centric growth. With behavioral analytics as one of our core technologies, our team is dedicated to delivering superior customer experiences by capturing and interpreting customer behavior. With an in-house team of highly skilled, experienced and innovative technology leaders, we help businesses understand their customers better. OSG’s Illuminate with its inbuilt behavioral analytics platform allows you to:

• Understand how and why your customers behave the way they do and what to do about it
•  Map customer journeys in a channel-less environment
• Deliver relevant and everchanging actionable insights

OSG has all the ingredients to enable your organization to thrive in a continuously disruptive environment. Contact us to talk about ideas to help advance your organizational success.

We hope this information has been interesting and valuable to you. Please, feel free to share it with colleagues and other people in your network. We welcome discussing this topic further with you and understanding your specific challenges.