Old Ways Won’t Open New Doors

Recently I started writing about rethinking how we shop and some leading examples I found. Over this past week I stumbled on a proverb which I believe really resonates with what the entire luxury fashion world is facing right now: “Old ways won’t open new doors.” 

Luxury brands have built their business on meaningful 1 to 1 in-person customer relationships. But the pandemic has disrupted this. In order to get back to those in-store experiences, brands who incorporate new technology into the customer experience will be able to bridge the gap, bounce back better and become more resilient.

New, or not so new, buzz words such as conversational commerce, digital CEO, CXM, modern engagement, BOPIS (buy online, pick up in store), SafeX (Providing safe(r) experiences), abound. As brands pivot to the new reality and begin to understand consumer sentiments, the need for outstanding “omnichannel strategy” is now, more than ever, key to survival.  

Omnichannel refers to the multichannel sales approach that provides the customer with an integrated shopping experience across platforms. The customer can be shopping online from a desktop or mobile device, via phone, or in a brick-and-mortar store, and the experience will be seamless.  

The world has moved to modern channels, states customer experience software company Sprinklr on their homepage banner. This includes things like live video streaming, virtual fashion shows and augmented reality snapchat filters. “Millennials + Gen-Z make up more than half the world’s population, and they’re using modern channels to post billions of messages, stories, and images about their life, their concerns, and their views,” Sprinklr explains. “Organizations must adopt modern channels as their primary communication channel in order to reach their customers and stakeholders.”

Seamless brand experience is what’s expected now. When considering the fact that a luxury brand is all about creating memorable experiences for their clients, which brands truly have been able to achieve this seamless approach? Companies need to juggle it all -- from the billions of messages and stories posted online to having a shoppable Instagram page and an easy to use e-com site to finally leading clients safely back into their heavily invested global brick-and-mortar stores where the client should be wowed.

Companies should be asking if their customer experience is disconnected or not. How many different channels are available and how many corporate stakeholders do these flow to? Are all key stakeholders -- product, marketing, sales, customer support -- linked internally with the same overarching strategy? The more diverse the channels, and the better connected they are, the more customers you’re able to successfully reach.  

The pandemic is already starting to reveal the resiliency of these new strategies. “Digital-first and omnichannel retailers have pivoted more easily, but retailers that prioritized physical stores and face-to-face engagement over omnichannel strategies have struggled to respond,” states Mckinsey’s most recent article entitled Adapting To The Next Normal In Retail - The Customer Experience Imperative. The piece goes on to say, “Organizations that can quickly reimagine their omnichannel approach to create a distinctive customer experience will recover faster from the pandemic.”

And whether you agree or not with Daniel Langer's recent article in Jing Daily’s that carried an alarming title warning that "Up To Half Of All Luxury Brands Won't Make It - Heres Why", the point made inside it has to be taken with the proverb I began this blog with. As the article notes: “few top brands excel at creating memorable experiences, and most brands only deliver lip service.” Those brands that take this to heart will, most likely, be rewarded with loyal customers. 

This is where the concept of conversational commerce comes to play, whether digitally or physically -- it will help brands adjust to this new reality. 

Conversational commerce is growing your brand on a 1:1 basis. According to sales and marketing platform Whisbi: “Conversational Marketing is a method of engaging with website visitors and converting leads via dialogue-driven activities. This style of inbound marketing puts a focus on interactions with the consumer, not simply one-way transmission by the brand. Conversational Marketing aims to create relationships with the consumer by building trust through conversations and by making the buying experience as smooth and easy as possible.” 

In a physical sense this is exactly what luxury brands have been focusing on for years. And it’s a big reason why luxury brands were able to rebound quicker than mid-market fashion brands after the 2008 financial crisis -- by creating outstanding physical retail experiences and building relationships one customer at a time. Loyal brand fans actually rarely stop their experience and relationship-based shopping, even in a time of crisis.    

It’s all about seamless client experience. Yes the “Internet of all things” may be the future but it’s not the only thing that matters. Most companies may not exceed 30% of revenue based purely off e-commerce and in the luxury world many clients still want to touch and feel the product before they make the final purchase. 

E-commerce does drive sales but it can’t replace the human interaction and relationship between the sales associate and the client. But without it, in a world deeply impacted in every way by the pandemic, brands must be flexible and embrace this new path in order to preserve the one to one customer experience. 

Old ways won’t open new doors. This is where we need tech to augment and help drive value in 1 to 1 relationship building as people stay home and quickly come to expect better remote, digital services from fashion brands. This new tech can then help pave a new way to the ultimate experience of having safe private pre-scheduled in-store appointments with your favourite sales associate. 

As Retail Dive writes about the “next chapter” of brick-and-mortar stores: “The whole purpose of technology is to free people up to do what they do best … People buy from people — whether it's clothing or books or cold cuts — it's the personal experience. That's why physical stores aren't going away"

In the end it’s still all about the human touch and all about the human experience. Brands will have to use the most modern tech solutions available to extend this human experience across digital platforms. And by creating this new personal experience remotely they will be well positioned to support and drive clients back into the stores once we return to a “new normal”