In the age of customer-first marketing – one might think that bigger retailers are at a clear advantage due to higher budgets, resource, and senior thinking.
Yes, of course, the larger retailers are able to throw money behind building customer experience teams and employing people to solely focus on uniting the business in putting the customer first. However, in our experience of working with all sizes of retailers – we actually think smaller retailers have the edge here.
In this post, I will explore three reasons why I think boutique retailers will find it easier to put the customer first:
Fewer customers
Most retailers would not view it as a benefit to having fewer customers than another, however, one of the main challenges larger retailers face in putting their customer first is having a huge number of customers that they have to understand and cater for.
To truly place the customer at the heart of their business, retailers must know who they are as people, how they shop with them now, how they shop with their competitors and how they can best engage with them in the future. This is a lot of data and insight to gather, analyse and take action from.
The fewer customers a retailer has, the less of a job it is to collect and organise data about them. The less time it will take to gather insight about them and what they want – the more simple it is to get inside the mind of the people who buy their products!
Flexibility
Smaller retailers have less complex business structures and processes that allow them to make change quicker.
We have worked with larger retailers who want to make change within their business to put more of a focus on the customer, but it requires huge resource and management to make those changes and put new processes in place.
We move in an extremely fast paced world and those retailers who can adapt and change first will give their customers the experience they want first.
Customer closeness
Smaller retailers are closer to their customers already and that’s a fact. In a small retail team, many will have direct contact with customers and therefore already have those direct relationships through which to get to know them better.
There is no excuse for boutique retailers not to be working hard to put their customers’ experience as a priority within their business.
Those that are not putting the customer first will be left behind by the competition who are already tailoring the experience they offer to create growth.
If you are a smaller or more boutique retailer the biggest challenge you will likely be facing is the fact that you are so busy running the day to day of your operations that taking time out to develop insight, analyse data and think strategically can be very hard to come by.
Luckily Leapfrogg are now able to help! We are now able to focus our experience with working with over 100 retailers on helping smaller and boutique retailers achieve their strategic goals. Our senior consultants act as board level advisors and in-house change makers to enable business owners or managers to take the time out to think strategically, start to work in an agile manner and take action to focus on the customer first.
Speak to us now about how we can help you start making a change in your business.