Although only 3% of retailers currently can identify specific customers when they walk in the store, that figure is projected to rise to 75% within five years, according to the inaugural Boston Retail Partners’ 2014 CRM/Unified Commerce Benchmark Survey.
Unified Commerce is the evolution of both multichannel and omni-channel retailing that provides a seamless experience in the store, on the Web, or anywhere customers choose to shop.
The key Unified Commerce initiatives, such as enhancing customer engagement, collecting and analyzing customer behavior, and personalizing the experience, are the top priorities for retailers, according to the survey.
The 2014 CRM/Unified Commerce Benchmark Survey of top North American retailers offers insights into retailers’ current state and planned initiatives, priorities, and future trends that relate to customer relationship management (CRM) practices associated with the retail industry’s shift to Unified Commerce.
“It was impressive to learn how many retailers are now focused on implementing the technologies to deliver Unified Commerce, but there is still a lot of work to be done to deliver these capabilities,” Walter Deacon, principal, Boston Retail Partners, said in a release. “Delivering Unified Commerce requires seamless execution of the right strategy, technology, and business processes.”
While marketing has become the center of the Unified Commerce organization, it is often still on its own as far as developing marketing technology strategies and evaluating and selecting technology. Retailers need to examine ways to improve the unification of marketing and IT to successfully implement these projects.
Many larger retailers have developed a role in the organization that helps bridge this gap—a senior-level role responsible for working with IT to develop a marketing technology strategy and evaluate and implement the technology, the survey reveals.
“To deliver the seamless experience, retailers need to gather, analyze and disseminate customer, product, pricing and inventory data in real-time,” Ken Morris, principal, Boston Retail Partners, said. “Leveraging technology, Unified Commerce provides the platform and
real-time retail is key to delivering the experience. Retailers that successfully deliver Unified Commerce will understand and adopt a ‘unified’ approach for: strategic customer initiatives, technology, business processes and execution.”
Here are some key takeaways from the survey:
• 95% of the respondents indicated customer experience/ customer engagement is one of their top three current initiatives
• 3% have the ability to identify the customer when she walks in the store, and another 72% plan to implement this within five years
• 16% currently have real-time retail from POS (which offers the “Amazon” experience in the store) and another 63% plan to implement within five years
• 28% currently use mobile marketing and another 62% plan to implement this within five years (56% plan to implement mobile marketing within two years)
• 81% have implemented some type of customer database, typically as part of a CRM or loyalty platform
• 22% of retailers have implemented real-time analytics and 61% plan to implement it within two years.