5 Keys to provide great Luxury Customer Experience

In today’s competitive world, undoubtedly, consumer is the king and companies need to exceed consumer expectations to create loyal customer base. Technology driven global leaders such as Apple and Amazon have raised the bar of consumer purchase experience by providing excellent customer service, convenience, vast variety, on-time deliveries, free returns and what not. Luxury industry is no exception to this phenomenon and increasing consumer expectations from luxury brands makes it imperative for them to understand consumer psychology to thrive in the dynamic luxury retail environment.

For luxury brands and retailers, understanding the luxury consumer journey is most important to be able to deliver best to these well-versed, discerning consumers. It is about knowing what exactly your consumer wants and being able to provide that and much more.Luxury retailers must work to make consumers’ shopping experience a seamless journey. Every time when consumers interact with luxury brands, it is important for retailers to make them feel delighted. This will create customers for life and maximize customer lifetime value for luxury brands. Just think about the last time you stayed in a luxury hotel or shopped at a luxury store or took a ride in luxury sedan or visited a gourmet restaurant or ordered something on a luxury portal. You will certainly have some memory about how you felt about the entire experience. Did you loved the experience or hated it? Was it worth your time and money?

Happiness research reveals that retailers need to trigger emotions of shoppers not just during the time of actual purchase but also during pre-purchase and post-purchase phase. It requires putting the customer at the center of the entire consumer purchase journey and providing flawless experience across all touch points.Personal relationship built on trust should be at the heart of every customer transaction.

Here are 5 keys to provide great luxury customer experience:

• Hyper-personalization: Luxury companies should use technologies like artificial intelligence enabled consumer data analysis to improve hyper-personalization in terms of product, promotion and shopping experience both in-store as well as online.For example, luxury Brands like Gucci and Valentino are using AI which help sales associates to recognize customers, greet them by their name and provide personalized recommendations based on consumers’ preferences and past purchase history. Sephora also uses AI technology to allow users to upload their picture and virtually apply makeup and visualize how products would look on them. The chosen products can simply be purchased via mobile, thereby making the whole purchase experience seamless, convenient and highly satisfying.

Similarly, live chat can provide real time assistance to the online luxury buyers making them feel important. Such engagement willboost consumers’ confidence in brand and refrain them to move to competitors’ brand. A recent study has found that shoppers who are engaged through live chat are 4.73 times more probable to convert and they can spend nearly 60% more than those who are not engaged.

Note: Technologies like AI and live chat are providing a new opportunity for luxury brands to offer better and seamless customer experience both online and offline.But, at the same time, technologies such as block-chain should be used to ensure data integrity and privacy.

• Unified customer insights: Luxury companies should draw unified insights related to consumer profile from all channels such as social media platforms, brick and mortar stores, online stores, website, etc. This will help them in providing unmatched customer experience. For example, omni-channel brands are using online consumer behavior to make decisions regarding their in-store assortment. A Nike concept store in Los Angeles has furnished bright-colored products in their store based upon the data acquired from consumers’ digital footprint.A 360 degree view of customer insights across touch points will permit luxury retailers to develop more captivating, discerned offers and deliver more meaningful customers experiences.

Note: Luxury retailers need to consciously invest in data driven analysis of in-store purchase behavior which will be the key in providing better customer experience in the future.

• Customer feedback: For luxury companies, it is very important to get honest customer feedback regarding service, product assortment, physical environment, salespersons’ attitude and overall consumer experience. For instance, once a consumer is through with the purchase and making the payment or is checking out of the hotel, he/she should be requested for feedback preferably on a platform which is easy to measure. (Since most of the times either luxury brands don’t have consumer data or even if they have, it is in the form which cannot be measured and so it is useless). This will help brands to gain valuable customer insights and accordingly design strategies to provide frictionless consumer experience in the future.

Note: Luxury brands must quickly act based upon customer feedback as if they will not care about their customers, they will lose their customers forever.

• Invest in customer service training: Regardless of the growing ecommerce business, physical stores and sales associates remain central to the success of luxury companies. Luxury sales associates have the power to transform transaction-led business into emotion-based relationships. As per a recent research by US based Luxury Institute, more than one-third of affluent consumers globally reported helpful sales associate as a prime reason for buying a particular luxury brand. More than 50% of opulent consumers mention product-related expertise as a key characteristic required by luxury sales associate followed by trustworthiness, courteousness and helpfulness.

Note: No matter how significant technology becomes in providing superior customer experience, role of sales associate will always remain most important.

• Building micro-moments: Luxury brands claim that they are in the business of creating dreams and making them true. Therefore, brands must surprise and wow their customers again and again. Marketers must amaze their consumers by doing something which they least expected. For instance, sending a small gift with a hand written note wishing them on their birthday or giving a little freebie with their order just to make them feel special or simply inviting loyal customer to an exclusive VIP sale to make the customer feel part of the elite community.

The article has been authored by Sheetal Jain, Founder & CEO, Luxe Analytics