Personalised Customer Journeys: Lessons from a Small-town Grocery Store
October 10, 2019
Growing up on a tobacco farm in Canada, summers weren’t a time for fun in the sun — they were a time for sweat and hard work! And while everyone in the family pitched in, no one had more to do than my mom.Each summer, Mom cooked three meals a day for a dozen burly, ravenous farm workers—plus our own family of six. On top of all the meal prep, cooking and clean-up, she also had to take care of a huge garden, tons of animals and four kids — leaving her with little time for grocery shopping.That’s where our local grocery store came to the rescue. The owners understood the value of delivering personalised customer journeys, long before the term existed.At the beginning of each summer, the store owners would call my mom to take her order for the stockpile of supplies she needed for the harvest season. They kept records of what she bought each year, so they knew the usual staples she’d need—cases of soup, cereal, pasta, rice, and enough beef, pork and chicken to fill a large freezer. They’d also tell her about any special deals and new products she might like to try. Then when the order was ready, they’d deliver it right to the farm.The grocery store didn’t just do this for my mom—they did it for every farm woman in the local area. And by going the extra mile to learn about each woman’s individual preferences and past purchases, they could anticipate her specific needs.That little, family-run grocery store was able to provide unmatched, personalised service that kept their customers coming back time after time—even after a larger, fancier, and cheaper national grocery store chain opened nearby. They knew how essential it was to driving customer loyalty and their bottom line.Back then, the owner relied on paper receipts and a great memory to track their customer information. Nowadays, most businesses collect and store customer information in CRM systems. The problem is that many still aren’t maximising the potential of this information to drive more efficient, effective and engaging interactions and personalised customer journeys.Join us on October 17 for the Contact Centre Helper webinar, Powerful new approaches to improving customer journeys. You’ll learn strategies to deliver more personalised service, and hear how companies big and small improved their customer experience, agent productivity and operational efficiency by integrating their CRM with NICE CXone.