Susan Nicol - General manager, Oakridge Centre
As we enter the busiest time of year for retailers, the focus is typically on boosting sales.
But if there is one lesson to be learned, it is that your customers’ experiences should not be compromised for the quick sale.
With this holiday season being described as a buyer’s market, there needs to be, more than ever, an emphasis on each customer’s overall experience. The aim is not only to boost sales, but also to retain customers. Look at the opportunities within all of your consumer touch points, from the way the store looks and feels to how customers are greeted and their experience throughout their entire visit.
“Flexibility” should be your word of the season. As the holidays are a busy time for everyone, being flexible with your customers by offering extra services like convenient pickup options for online purchases, complimentary gift wrap options, delivery services and easy return policies can be the deciding factor that sways destination choices for your customers. At Oakridge Centre, we always look for those sometimes small but powerful incentives to enhance our shoppers’ experiences. For example, one of our most successful holiday features has been with the holiday gift-wrap booth, run by volunteers from the BC Blind Sports and Recreation Association. For many of our shoppers, this has become a holiday tradition that brings them back year after year.
The holiday season can be a make-or-break time for your business. Look for opportunities to create a genuine and memorable experience for your customers.
Nancy Richardson - Chief marketing officer, Clearly
The holidays are an opportunity to build deep, long-term relationships with your customers.
A successful retail holiday season is not just about pricing and attractive sales opportunities; it is, more importantly, an opportunity to strengthen your brand and service offerings that drive engagement and loyalty that will last a lifetime.
This is the most important time of the year for companies to remain focused on their value proposition to their customers. When your focus is on delivering a meaningful customer experience, the financial results will follow. Conversely, when retailers solely focus on revenue targets and short-term profitability, they risk doing long-term damage to their business.
Whether customers want to hear a voice on the phone, be connected through email or engage on social media, you should strive to exceed their expectations by offering an experience based on education and service – as opposed to just selling.
This approach will create trust and ensure that they come back and choose your brand over and over again, for reasons deeper than discounts and price cuts.
In a highly competitive landscape where people have many choices of where to spend their hard-earned dollars, building brand love by creating a meaningful experience that fosters an authentic relationship with each customer will not only deliver on short-term business needs but also drive the long-term success of your brand.
Alex Troll - Co-founder, The Juicery Co.
I love Christmas; it’s my favourite time of the year. My family has a lot of traditions that I try and bring into our stores.
I find atmosphere is important around the holidays – people want to see, hear and smell Christmas.
Getting your staff on board always helps with spreading the holiday spirit to your customers. We get our staff involved by decorating our stores, playing holiday music and creating fun crafts that make the store smell amazing – clove oranges are a team favourite. We also love giving back to the community around the holidays so we set up warm-clothing donation bins every year at our stores.
The holidays are a great time to get creative and try new ideas. We make sure to always create some delicious ideas and add seasonal limited-edition items to our menu, which are always a big hit. We love to take holiday favourites that make our customers nostalgic, such as hot cocoa and pumpkin spice lattes, and make them healthy but still tasty. We want our customers to know that every year we bring back their holiday favourites for a special treat over the Christmas season.
To increase sales and traffic we connect with lots of local, sustainable and health-conscious vendors that don’t necessarily have storefronts but that fit with our brand values. We love bringing them in for pop-up shops every weekend through December to use our space, connect with existing and new customers and sell their products. We also take the time to seek out local products to stock our shelves so our customers can pick up gifts that align well with their year-round favourites.
