Clienteling has dominated the luxury retail space for many years. It is also becoming more relevant in today’s digital transformation. At Confer With, we answer the burning questions surrounding clienteling.
We will cover…
- What is clienteling?
- What is the difference between clienteling and customer service?
- What are the benefits of clienteling?
- Clienteling examples
- Leveraging clienteling with live video shopping
What is Clienteling?
Clienteling seeks to establish meaningful relationships between the retailer and the customer. This is achieved by empowering sales associates with real-time data based on the customer profile. This includes:
-
- Past purchases
- Needs
- Wants
- Interests
Often achieved using an in-store app, the retailer can aim to offer a truly personalised experience to the customer.
“Effective clienteling is part of a complex journey. In essence, it transforms your customer journey into something personalized. To accomplish this, clienteling tools rely on client data, such as purchase history and personal information. The end goal is to increase customer lifetime value.” – Salesforce
There is also an up-and-coming tool called virtual clienteling. Customers relate more to a holistic approach to e-commerce, and although data is key to making informed decisions, having a human speak to a human drives successes in virtual clienteling. The technology-led approach is allowing retailers to meet their customers across all types of digital touchpoints in meaningful ways. Be sure to check out our article on 5 reasons why virtual clienteling is important.
Clienteling and customer service share a common goal: to identify the needs of the customer and deliver a solution, resulting in a closed sale. In short, customer service can help achieve KPIs, push promotions, and increase the average order value of the basket.
However, retailers utilising customer service as their only tool can encounter barriers. Boston Retail Partners suggested that 63% of retailers struggled to identify their customers before approaching the till. A further 20% were unable to identify them at all.
That is the key difference between customer service and clienteling
Customer service relies heavily on face-value information, whereas clienteling can equip sales associates with the powerful knowledge to enhance the customer journey.
Nordstrom, Wish Lists and Reserved Dressing Rooms
The large American store chain, Nordstrom, delivered exceptional clienteling by investing in retail technology. Customers can use the retailer’s mobile app to create wish lists and reserve a dress fitting appointment; a clever way to banish frustrating queue times.
This is a strong case of clienteling being a two-way relationship between the retailer and the customer. Nordstrom understands consumers preferences and needs; the consumer praises the effortless experience.
What are the Benefits of Clienteling?
Clienteling has the following benefits for retailers:
- Repeat business
- More customers
- Opportunities to upsell
- Deliver a personalised and enhanced experience
This model has enabled businesses to focus on high-value customers who cost less to target, and ultimately buy more. Using clienteling data, data collection can increase by up to 300% and retention rates by 200%.
With store closures still occurring in 2023, is clienteling still relevant?
YES.
According to Salesforce, 81% of UK consumers suggested visiting a physical store is an essential part of their shopping experience.
Research for RetailEXPO also concluded that almost two out of three (64%) of shoppers say that knowledgeable sales associates make them more likely to visit a physical store, and three out of four (75%) of shoppers are likely to spend more after receiving high quality service from staff in-store.
Despite the public undergoing a massive shift in online spending due to COVID-19 restrictions, the reopening of physical retail still depends on that human interaction.
Which begs the question – how can your business achieve clienteling success in 2023? Below are some examples.
Clienteling Examples
Ralph Lauren and Virtual Appointments
Clienteling has dominated the luxury retail landscape for years. They know what high-value customers want and how to deliver. Ralph Lauren is a prime example of adapting to the shift in buying behaviour.
For instance, they offer virtual appointments and live stream selling, achieving exceptional results. Patrice Louvet, CEO of Ralph Lauren, said:
“Virtual appointments have driven double the spend versus our average consumer transaction”
Prior to the pandemic, up to 85% of beauty-product purchases were made in-store. The market then saw around 30% of their stores being closed.
Firstly, L’Oréal’s Tap and Try enables consumers to browse a number of beauty and care products on the website. Using AR technology, it can recommend products to which consumers can have a ‘virtual try-on’. Online ambassadors are available to help with choosing a product, enhancing the customer journey and empowering ambassadors with preferences and interests.
Secondly, an additional feature, ‘Signature Faces’, integrates with platforms like Snapchat and Instagram. It allows users to select predefined filters, escaping the ‘just got out of bed’ look.
Those two examples demonstrate the mission to humanise the virtual shopping experience. Humans thrive on social interaction and this behaviour filters down to the shopping experience.
However, despite efforts utilising video streaming, it can still often lead to basket abandonment. Which begs the final question…
How can your business utilise enhanced video commerce to create meaningful customer relationships?
Digital transformation to video has happened at lightning speed and even though there will be a bounce back to in-store shopping experiences, the virtual space is here to stay.
Confer With allows a shared virtual basket between the expert and customer, meaning familiar human interactions like ‘let me take this to the till for you’ can be achieved. Similar to streaming, one-to-one or one-to-many service is made available too.
However what ties clienteling and the enhanced customer journey is the option to suggest alternatives, accessories and promotions, whilst having access to real-time data including stock levels.
An influx of traffic going to a website’s chatbot results in limited personalisation to actual customer needs, meaning unhappy customers.
Using Confer With can enable your business to schedule appointments, suiting the customer’s preferences and increasing transparency.
Above all, it is a way to empower your experts with knowledge, control and job satisfaction.
You can see benefits which appear in clienteling:
- Repeat business from remote customers
- More customers who can’t make it into the store
- Opportunities to upsell
- Deliver a personalised and enhanced experience
Bridging the gap between brick-and-mortar stores and the virtual space is a way to tap into consumer demand and if 4 in 5 consumers prefer in-store experiences, video commerce is the way forward.
Clienteling offers a personalised service between the retailer and the customer. Often happening in-store using mobile apps, the pandemic has encouraged business owners to think outside the box and take it online.
In contrast, Confer With takes it one step further by integrating a seamless shared virtual basket experience; humanising the missed social interaction between the expert and consumer.
Learn more
How it works: Enterprise capabilities for virtual clienteling with Confer With
