Predictability in Customer Experience Improvement - A Perspective for Grocery Retail Industry

With significant competition and similarity between products as well as operating models, it has become extremely difficult to differentiate your products and company. Even price is no longer a differentiation due to price-match policies followed by many players. Customer buy from certain vendor only if they “like” to buy from this vendor. Herculean efforts are being made by different companies to create that unique differentiated experience for every customer which creates the love to transact with the company again and again.  Although multiple actions are taken by companies, predictability in terms of action and desired result/outcome with respect to customer experience is still a challenge.

In my earlier blog Customer Experience Improvement using Maslow’s theory,    https://personalandprofessionalexcellence.blogspot.com/2018/03/customer-experience-improvement-using.html, I have described a framework that could be used to get a better understanding of the customer and create actions to address his/her needs to improve the experience provided by the company. In this blog, I have taken an example of Grocery Retail business and discussed the application of this framework to build predictability in improving the customer experience.

As described in the previous blog, differentiated customer experience levels for a grocery customer are defined. Which start with lowest level that customer will buy form them i.e. “Customer is OK” moving to “Customer being comfortable”, then to “feeling at home” then going “on a high” when he/she shops at the specific grocery shop; Ultimately reaching “Nirvana” while shopping at this store. As certain needs get satisfied, customer moves upwards in step wise manner from “Customer is OK” to “Customer feels Nirvana”. The key for Grocery chain is to create appropriate interventions which will satisfy the right needs at right levels for right set of customers, thus pushing the shopping experience upwards. Accurate identification of needs which would result into specific level of experience, is critical to build predictability in the customer experience improvement program for any Grocery chain. The needs of customers could be identified at multiple levels based on the strategy being adopted, it could be all customers together or customers segmented based on parameters like age, sex, income, race, geography, etc. Predictability in desired improvement is directly proportional to the granularity of the segmentation and specific needs assessment at each level.

For understanding purpose, I have analyzed the needs using two customer segments based on age i.e. “Age > 50” and “Age < 30”. Following picture provides details regarding interpretation of specific experience into what it means to them.  We can see that the needs of both the segments are different and experience that each action will create for these segments will be different. Knowing this relationship will help in building predictability for the company.  

Let us look at the need for “Customer is OK” to shop. The 50+ segment looks for ease in physical access as key whereas 30- segment looks for online access as important.  Which means if Grocery chain does not have online store or online order and pick up at store facility; there are less chances of attracting any younger generation customers to shop with them. The younger generation will feel “nirvana” if they are able to order anything using their mobile phone and get it delivered at home. However same feeling is achieved differently by the 50+ segment. If a grocery chain creates a free wi-fi facility and a café where customers can spend as much time as they want, the 30- generation feels it like home and will visit more often whereas there is no impact on customer experience for the 50+ segment. Grocery chains can create this needs pyramid for various customer experience levels for the specific permutation / combination of their customer segments they run their business with and start building interventions specific to specific improvement desired for specific customer segment thus building desired predictability.

In summary, identify right customer segments, build needs pyramid for customer experience levels, create interventions addressing specific needs of specific segments, achieve specific improvement in customer experience.