From the cautious spender to the impulsive shopper: how to serve the customers of the future

Covid-19 has changed the way we live, work – and shop. Busi­ness­es across the globe are adapt­ing, vying to tap the new breeds of cus­tomers that have emerged from the pan­dem­ic. 

While online retail­ers have thrived, tough lock­down restric­tions have forced bricks-and-mor­tar busi­ness­es to get cre­ative to keep reach­ing cus­tomers. Mean­ing­ful inter­ac­tion, a focus on brand loy­al­ty and a desire to offer a ser­vice that’s some­how both per­son­al and hyper-effi­cient have tak­en cen­tre stage.  

“Covid has altered con­sumer behav­iour because it has intro­duced a ‘pat­tern break’,” says Mark Pilk­ing­ton, author of Retail Recov­ery: How Cre­ative Retail­ers Are Win­ning In Their Post-Apoc­a­lyp­tic World. “Work­ing from home changes many pat­terns of con­sump­tion. Less is spent on trans­port and more on telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions … Less is spent on extro­vert­ed con­sump­tion, such as fash­ion and eat­ing out, and more is spent on intro­vert­ed con­sump­tion, such as ath­leisure and home improve­ments.”

Rebec­ca Saun­ders, retail advis­er, entre­pre­neur and founder of beau­ty retail­er Seekol­o­gy, says that cus­tomers were forced to spend a sig­nif­i­cant pro­por­tion of their mon­ey online while “non-essen­tial” retail was closed. 

“We’re now see­ing a bifur­ca­tion of behav­iour, with some remain­ing cau­tious — often despite their ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed sta­tus — and with many peo­ple hav­ing fun­da­men­tal­ly changed their shop­ping habits for the medi­um term, at least.”

With the tra­di­tion­al con­sumer encoun­ter­ing sig­nif­i­cant changes to the way they spend both their time and mon­ey, there’s def­i­nite room for a renewed focus on cus­tomer expe­ri­ence (CX). 

“The impact of social dis­tanc­ing has accel­er­at­ed trends in dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion that are here to stay and brands are hav­ing to rethink the role of cus­tomer expe­ri­ence,” says Angel­i­ca Cabel­los, VP EMEA Solu­tion Con­sult­ing at Sprin­klr, which pro­vides uni­fied CX man­age­ment soft­ware. “This is a time for retail­ers to rein­vent both in-store and vir­tu­al expe­ri­ences.”

Part of that rein­ven­tion is an acknowl­edge­ment of the emerg­ing post-Covid cus­tomer pro­files — and how retail­ers engage with them is crit­i­cal. Here’s what you need to know. 

The impulsive consumer

These cus­tomers are work­ing from home indef­i­nite­ly. Because they no longer splash out on oat­milk flat whites on the way to the office, they tell them­selves it’s fine to spend a small for­tune on a snap pur­chase. Again.  

This “YOLO” mind­set means they’re prone to spend­ing with lit­tle care for con­se­quence. They can there­fore be quick­ly con­vert­ed — and just as quick­ly repelled. 

“Impul­sive shop­pers are even more like­ly to spend if there is some form of flash pro­mo­tion or an incen­tive, such as free ship­ping,” says Sophie Big­ger­staff, founder of retail con­sul­tan­cy BYRCOLLECTIVE. 

In offline set­tings, it can pay to give cus­tomers the option to skip queues and pay with QR codes or use a self-ser­vice check­out. 

“If they have to queue, they’re more like­ly to put down their pur­chase,” she adds.

It’s cru­cial to design an expe­ri­ence that match­es the inten­tions of your cus­tomer, be it an unplanned trans­ac­tion or a care­ful­ly con­sid­ered pur­chase. Data is crit­i­cal, says Lam­bert Walsh, SVP of cus­tomer suc­cess at Docusign. Com­pa­nies can learn impor­tant lessons by analysing the activ­i­ty they tar­get at cus­tomers. 

 “Giv­en the myr­i­ad ways now avail­able to gath­er and mea­sure data, it’s eas­i­er than ever to show which efforts are deliv­er­ing a return and should lead to fur­ther invest­ment,” he notes.

The on-the-edge shopper

They’re haunt­ed by mem­o­ries of jug­gling home-school­ing with car­ing for shield­ing par­ents. They live in mild fear of being “pinged” before next week’s board pre­sen­ta­tion. They want to be reas­sured by retail­ers — com­fort­ed, even — and are seek­ing CX that can offer, even for the briefest of moments, an ele­ment of escapism. 

Meet­ing these needs demands empa­thy and con­sid­er­a­tion for what the cus­tomer wants. “We all know what a good expe­ri­ence ver­sus a bad expe­ri­ence feels like,” says Walsh. ”My team and I always con­sid­er how we would feel hav­ing that expe­ri­ence. Cus­tomers want us to deliv­er a depth of under­stand­ing — to under­stand their risk dimen­sions and solve some spe­cif­ic prob­lem in their envi­ron­ment.”

Such an approach could reap div­i­dends that extend long past the end of lock­downs, as illus­trat­ed by the expe­ri­ence of ath­let­ic appar­el retail­er, lul­ule­mon.

“The pan­dem­ic has led to a sig­nif­i­cant shift in the way our cus­tomers shop,” says Michael Man­o­tas-McCaf­fer­ty, lululemon’s senior direc­tor, dig­i­tal. “Despite ongo­ing Covid restric­tions, which nat­u­ral­ly impact­ed our bricks-and-mor­tar busi­ness, lul­ule­mon respond­ed well, with our cus­tomers shift­ing to online – many shop­ping with us for the first time.” 

As part of this online flex, the brand launched a vir­tu­al shop­ping ser­vice, allow­ing bud­ding cus­tomers to speak direct­ly with the team and help­ing to push them towards that trans­ac­tion­al end-goal. The ser­vice has proven so pop­u­lar that it has stayed online post-lock­down, help­ing to con­tribute towards the company’s first quar­ter results, which saw dig­i­tal net rev­enue leap by 55% to $545m. 

Evolv­ing your dig­i­tal plat­form can help ensure that a cus­tomer always feels recog­nised and under­stood. Retail­ers should use AI to under­stand the intent of their cus­tomers’ mes­sages, says Cabel­los, auto­mat­i­cal­ly rout­ing inbound com­ments across dig­i­tal chan­nels to the right agent based on top­ic and urgency.

“Time is increas­ing­ly valu­able for a retailer’s cus­tomers and employ­ers, so automat­ing man­u­al process­es is vital for opti­mis­ing CX, whilst also giv­ing employ­ees more time to focus on per­son­al­is­ing crit­i­cal cus­tomer engage­ments.”

The chancer

They know busi­ness­es across the globe have been hit hard by Covid-19 restric­tions and aren’t afraid to pick holes in your brand’s ser­vice for their own poten­tial gain. They’ll query every­thing from VAT to the time your social team takes to respond to mes­sages. They look at your final pric­ing as a start­ing point for nego­ti­a­tion. So how can you ensure the chancer has no ground to stand on when cri­tiquing your busi­ness?

It’s unre­al­is­tic to expect a flaw­less cus­tomer jour­ney in every trans­ac­tion. How­ev­er, ensur­ing your core oper­a­tional pil­lars are tar­get­ed towards excel­lence can help. 

Peo­ple are increas­ing­ly pay­ing atten­tion to how retail­ers treat cus­tomers, and pub­licly talk­ing about their expe­ri­ences more than ever before

“If a retail­er can uni­fy their cus­tomer-fac­ing func­tions — includ­ing mar­ket­ing, adver­tis­ing and cus­tomer ser­vice — they’ll be in a bet­ter posi­tion to tack­le any com­plaint,” advis­es Cabel­los. “A customer’s expe­ri­ence is incred­i­bly impor­tant today… Peo­ple are increas­ing­ly pay­ing atten­tion to how retail­ers treat cus­tomers, and pub­licly talk­ing about their expe­ri­ences more than ever before on dig­i­tal chan­nels.”

When it comes to the chancer, it’s impor­tant that retail­ers ask whether they actu­al­ly want to court this demo­graph­ic, as it’s unlike­ly to be prof­itable, warns Pilk­ing­ton. 

“Chancers are unlike­ly to be very brand-loy­al and will default to the low­est-cost com­peti­tor. Busi­ness­es are usu­al­ly bet­ter off iden­ti­fy­ing and focus­ing on loy­al cus­tomers who love the brand and are not going to be tempt­ed away. Many busi­ness­es unfor­tu­nate­ly lack the data to iden­ti­fy these core cus­tomers, so col­lect­ing and uni­fy­ing con­sumer data has to be a key pri­or­i­ty.”

The cautious spender

Once bit­ten, twice shy. Whether they’ve expe­ri­enced redun­dan­cy or have been left feel­ing anx­ious by the uncer­tain­ty of the last 18 months, the cau­tious spender might need coax­ing into action when com­mit­ting to spend. They’re like­ly to add items to their vir­tu­al bas­ket with­out mak­ing it through to the check­out and are prone to linger on web­pages. 

“The best way to con­vince cau­tious cus­tomers is to pro­vide a great qual­i­ty prod­uct or ser­vice at an attrac­tive but sta­ble price,” says Pilk­ing­ton. 

There are always ways for retail­ers to “gain wal­let-share from spenders who may cur­rent­ly be feel­ing cau­tious”, says Saun­ders. “This could be help­ing them under­stand val­ue-for-mon­ey when buy­ing cer­tain prod­ucts, for exam­ple, or appeal­ing to oth­er char­ac­ter­is­tics, such as sus­tain­abil­i­ty.”

Illus­trat­ing your cre­den­tials is anoth­er way to instil con­fi­dence, says Man­o­tas-McCaf­fer­ty. His com­pa­ny wants to max­imise cus­tomer con­fi­dence in their pur­chas­es, so has updat­ed its prod­uct pages to empha­sise the “Why We Made This” and “Reviews” sec­tions, he says. 

“This gives more insight into the con­struc­tion and tech­ni­cal ele­ments of our prod­ucts, whilst read­ing what oth­er pur­chasers think.”

A clear-cut returns pol­i­cy can also help, sug­gests Big­ger­staff. Cau­tious shop­pers need reas­sur­ance, which can be offered through a good returns pol­i­cy, she notes. 

“Hav­ing a short or dif­fi­cult pol­i­cy will almost cer­tain­ly put them off. Know­ing they can return or can­cel some­thing with­in 30 days elim­i­nates any major risk and makes them feel more con­fi­dent.”

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