On Customer Experience — ‘Analog’ to Digital

Lessons from Exploring Phones in a Store

I want to play with the phone too……

This image of my son jumping up and down because he cannot reach the phones highlights how high street stores may be missing out on a few tricks to improve overall customer engagement.

To appreciate what I mean, notice a few things

1. Empty white spaces below the big display screens on the walls
2. The displays being static — not promoting any interactions even for adults
3. The furnishings (geometrically shaped display tables) reducing free movement in the limited floor space
4. A visitor has to wait in most cases 10-15 min to be served by the 3-4 customer service agents in the store

Technology could and rather be leveraged to improve the experience derived from this retail store investment.

1. Use of interactive displays — using available technology

• Provide touch-enabled capabilities in the empty white walls to play games, draw images, explore stories and phone technology to keep kids engaged. They would happily while their time away
• Allow interactions in the existing displays so adults could self serve- explore the phone models, compare features and possibly order without having to wait for a customer agent to become available first

2. Rearrange the phone model display in one central island — so those interested can engage with one another too. People are social and that is likely to improve the popularity of and engagement within the store

3. By rearranging the displays from multiple islands to one central island, space is freed up to demonstrate futuristic technology. For example, deploy Augmented Reality (AR)enabled display of a premium model that customers and visitors can interact with and explore using their existing devices. I would expect this to increase the desirability of both the advertised product and the store experience.

Here is an interesting video I came across around AR enablement in grocery shopping — it provides some perspective of even how rather dull experiences can be enriched using technology =>

I feel the points suggested above would transform in-store experiences into rich memories which will allow the high street to use technology to differentiate from the online channel experience. If I had to just check phones, and order them I can do so today from a laptop or phone while at home and without waiting 10-15 min waiting for staff in a store to become available and then possibly telling me nothing that I may not already find online.

I welcome your thoughts.

video credit: goopy.io