Three Tips for Meeting Changing Customer Demands in Jewellery Retail

With many having operated for decades and some for over a century, jewellery retail is steeped in years of tradition. It’s a field in which the customer relationship and service has always been of the highest value (both figuratively and literally). We mark life’s special moments and landmarks with the purchase of jewellery, and every visit is an opportunity to encourage loyalty and form a relationship with the customer, whether that’s instore or online.

However, it’s an industry that’s not exempt from the rapid changes that are taking place in the retail industry, driven by new customer demands, expectations and fuelled by advances in technology. Customers have come to expect agility from retailers, the ability to offer what they want, when they want it and through the channel they choose, from online delivery options to tailored offers, product knowledge and availability. They expect retailers to adapt to their personal needs and with loyalty becoming harder to acquire as the retail industry evolves, if a retailer can’t offer their customer what they want, they will simply go elsewhere.

With these changes come new opportunities for jewellery retailers to further engage with their customers and build upon the personal relationships they are known for. Technology now gives jewellery retailers the ability to add new layers to the service they offer in order to close profit gaps, drive growth and cater to new customer demands to provide an exceptional experience.

1. Getting to Know your Customers Even Better

In order to truly personalise communications today, retailers must go beyond simply collecting email addresses for a newsletter and develop a comprehensive customer database that can be used for loyalty programs and tailored promotions. Why not segment your customers and target them with different offers based on their personal shopping habits? With powerful data, you can also track special dates such as birthdays and weddings to offer personalised communications at the right times. This is a sophisticated way of making your customers feel like you truly know them and can be made simple with the right technology now accessible to retailers of all sizes.

2. Catering to the Multi-Channel Shopper

For retailers who already operate online or are planning to in addition to their physical store(s), it’s key to ensure that once someone lands on your site, you make their experience as simple, easy and personal as it would be instore so that any channel they reach you through, they have a consistent experience. Things to consider:

• A responsive website which adapts to the device your customer chooses to shop via, whether it’s a desktop PC, smartphone or tablet. This improves usability and doesn’t leave your customer frustrated having to zoom in and out to see items.
• Live and reliable stock levels across all your channels, so if a customer buys a ring online they can be confident that they will receive their item, not be hit with an ‘out of stock’ message.
• A range of delivery options so the customer can receive their package how and when they want, especially if it’s a last minute jewellery purchase for a birthday or anniversary. Consider next day delivery, named day delivery, weekend delivery and the option of Click and Collect. If you do offer Click and Collect, which is great way of bringing customers instore, ensure you have a capable retail system in place to handle this seamlessly and make it clear where the customer needs to go to pick up their items quickly and easily.

3. Offering Customers an Instore Shopping ‘Experience’

Whilst online retail is growing rapidly, it’s still so important to offer the best possible experience to your customers instore. In fact, of the £313bn spent by UK consumers in 2015, a recent survey by Verdict Retail and British Land found that £278bn (89%) “touched” a store through physical sales, Click and Collect and online sales browsed in store, so it’s important to continuously improve your offering to retain customers in this competitive market.

Using increasingly sophisticated Mobile PoS technology, you can sit down with a tablet and recommend products for your customer based on their preferences, show them additional styles and complete the transaction there and then at the touch of a button. It’s the chance for you to show off your passion for the industry and product knowledge whilst making them feel valued with one-to-one attention. In addition to this, live and accurate stock levels across your stores, online and in your warehouse, should you have one, will enable you to locate products that your customers want easily or even order an out of stock item, so you’re not turning them away to a competitor.

There are many unique ways in which the jewellery industry works. If you offer services such as bespoke orders or workshop repairs, think about ways in which you could potentially improve this process and importantly, communication with the customer.

How do you keep your customers updated about repairs and ensure that you are hitting their deadlines? Do you have a system to log the whole process for complete transparency, so any staff member can pick up an order and inform the customer of its progress? Technology advancements now mean that these types of services can be integrated within one system to automate customer communications about jobs and provide the outstanding and seamless shopping journey they have come to expect, not to mention reducing the amount of admin the retailer has to do.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on customer expectations and demands in retail, especially in the jewellery retail sector. Share them with us on Twitter @cybertill or Facebook. To download a copy of our free guide ‘EPoS Reinvented for Jewellery Retail’ simple click here.