Given the urgency, it’s understandable that retailers are eager to get these new technologies in place to start engaging their customers. But a rushed technology project can also be a failed one. Many consumers won’t come back if their initial encounter with a kiosk, mobile device or digital display is a poor one. McKinsey & Company found a single negative experience has four to five times greater relative impact than a positive one.
Here are several common pitfalls that come from rushing to deploy customer-engagement technology, and how to avoid them:
In their zeal to make a big splash, sometimes retailers create ambitious presentations around the new device, such as massive floor-to-ceiling kiosk cabinets. These run up costs and slow down rollouts.
Best Practice: Take advantage of the low cost, flexible and easy nature of mobile devices to experiment and prove the value of a new customer engagement technology, before bogging it down with too many bells and whistles.
A related issue to overproduction is asking too much of one device. The more roles it is asked to play ― say, a kiosk used for bill payment, endless aisle, loyalty point lookup, order pickup, and so on ― the more bogged down it gets. All those functions require multiple integrations which must be written and maintained. They can also frustrate customers in-store when they must wait for access, negating their engagement value.
Best Practice: Purpose-build devices for limited use cases and communicate those uses clearly to customers.
Placement of a devices such as a kiosk tends to be marketing-driven. But often those locations are not properly wired to meet power demands. As a result, performance is compromised, degrading the user experience.
Best Practice: Ensure devices such as POS, digital displays and kiosk have a dedicated power source. Build the required electrical work into your timeline and budget.
Project planners often assume they can download the image for a tablet, kiosk, mobile terminal or other device on site via the in-store Wifi. But those images can be large, so the process ends up degrading network performance and slowing the pace of the rollout.
Best Practice: Plan to load images in bulk at a facility set up for that process, before shipping equipment to stores.
New in-store devices come with their own support needs. They may be supplied by different vendors than other in-store systems, and therefore have different warranty terms and service plans. Without clear support terms and coordination among vendors, it will take longer to get a failing device back online, degrading the customer experience.
Best Practice: Thoroughly understand support options and uptime requirements for each new device. Establish and communicate support processes clearly to in-store and help desk staff.
The biggest obstacle retailers face when deploying a new customer engagement technology in store is not knowing what they don’t know. Because they work on many installations, skilled third-party integrators such as Level 10 quickly gain experience with new technologies.
Partner with Level 10 to take a smarter approach without sacrificing time. Contact us today to start achieving your critical customer engagement goals.