Building a community of more informed, more engaged, and most importantly more fun customers by taking a mobile-first approach to personalizing the retail experience can.
A particular Bob Dylan song best describes the current state of retail sales. Times are changing.
This is because buyer expectations have evolved as the pandemic shifts to a digital-centric environment. Advances in e-commerce adoption have blended a new level of personalization and convenience into the buyer journey. Above all, customers and prospects increasingly expect a seamless end-to-end buying experience optimized for their device of choice: their smartphone.
Over the past decade, we’ve seen smartphones elevate from luxury gadgets to social necessities. This rapid adoption has changed the way buyers interact with brands. Whether via social media channels or mobile commerce, smartphones are powerful tools that act as a one-stop-shop for digital-centric customers.
And the best part? The future is full of opportunities. The impact of smartphones on retail sales is just scratching the surface.
starting with the staff
Providing customers with a bespoke experience is the name of the game in retail sales. And that thinking applies to the employee experience as well. Empowering salespeople with sales enablement tools that infuse personalization into the learning and coaching process translates directly into more effective buyer engagement.
Mobile technology enables salespeople to complete personalized training courses tailored to their unique learning needs, anytime, anywhere. Traditional retail sales training frameworks, where sales reps are stuck in a back room watching instructional videos, are simply not effective. They are static and inadequate to provide practical guidance.
Adopting sales enablement tools optimized for smartphone compatibility, retailers can create a carousel of training tips in the form of quick videos, short text blocks, gamified quizzes, You can make it accessible from any mobile device. Increased levels of accessibility and personalization allow reps to leverage Just-In-His-Time Micro-His Learning, Adaptive Learning Paths, and Continuous Everboarding to improve performance.
Oh, it’s also more fun!
Leveraging this targeted approach to employee empowerment creates a united front of skilled workers who all work together. Like a well-oiled machine, you have real-time access to timely and relevant information from the palm of your hand. The end result is a strong customer-facing sales team across various store locations. Red tape is gone and employees have the information they need, when they need it, and on the device that works best for them.
Bring your product to life
Retail buyers are also tech savvy. Smartphones enable retailers to transform physical showrooms into immersive, interactive digital experiences. For example, Augmented Reality (AR) gives the customer a 360-degree view of her of a specific product that can be customized to any style or color.
Want to see if a particular chair matches your dining room table? Simple. Or what about how the painting will look on your wall? All on your mobile device without stepping into the store. It makes buying decisions less stressful and frankly makes shopping more enjoyable.
In addition to AR, virtual reality (VR) also aligns prospects with the digital-centric sales environment. They can work on products in real-world simulations that reflect real-world experiences. Considering that everyone learns in different ways, giving prospects the sights, sounds, and actions of how your product works will help them make smart purchasing decisions. can.
the future is now
More than ever, retailers have the ability to enhance buyer engagement and deliver impactful experiences to their retail customers. Salespeople are now curators of personalization, allowing buyers to explore beyond physical shelves.
Smartphones are becoming the baseline tool for how we interact with the world around us. By taking a mobile-first approach to personalizing the retail sales experience, you can build a community of salespeople and customers. These communities are more informed, more engaged, and most importantly, more fun.
