Episode 25: Why retailers must embrace payments as part of the overall customer experience

Amie Larter chats with Andrew Thornton, retail industry lead at Tyro Payments about how in a rush to create a shopping environment that wows customers and entices them to spend, many retailers overlook the payment process's impact on the overall customer experience. 

Transcript

Amie:

Welcome to Retail Untangled. My name is Amy Later and this is the podcast where we speak to retail industry experts and find out business hacks that have helped them succeed. You won't find these gems anywhere else and we have some superb stories from the coal face as well as helicopter insights from retail industry leaders.

Research shows consumers are dictating the terms, value, loyalty, security, and convenience. Retailers who strategically align with these demands are gaining a clear edge. We've dedicated significant air time on retail untangled to customer experience.

We've dedicated significant air time to customer experience in previous episodes of Retail Untangled, but we've yet to explore its intersection and role specifically alongside the payment side of the journey. Today, we're doing just that with Andrew Thornton, Retail Industry Lead at Tyro Payments. Welcome, Andrew.

Andrew:

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Amie: 

My pleasure. So Andrew, the consumer's focus on value is undeniable. Research conducted by Inside Retail and Tyro late last year revealed that a significant 70% of customers reported changes in their spending habits, demonstrating a smarter shopping approach that balances value and quality during these tougher times. We know that from a consumer perspective, cost of living pressures, et cetera, they are really having an impact. So I'm keen to understand, given these shifts, what are the biggest challenges retailers face in streamlining the payments journey and what's the impact? Just that small question there.

Andrew:

It's actually a really good question. I think with changes in the economy and the pressures that put on people, there's always going to be changes in customer behavior. I think that is very true now and I think it's going to be true six months from now… 

Amie:

There’s no destination, it's just a journey and it's always changing.

Andrew:

There's no way of knowing. I think, you know, I guess it comes down to the individual retailer. I know this may seem like a cop out of an answer, but it does come down to the individual retailer and what they sort of, when it comes to, I guess, streamlining payments, what they prioritise and what they want their business and the way they interact with their customers to feel like. Because I know we talk about payments and payments for a lot of people is just the part at the end of the process.

Amie:

Is it the transactional kind of...

Andrew:

Exactly, right? It's that part at the end of the process where you're like, yeah, they're going to take my money for this. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So I think for some and think about your larger retailers, it may be your big box movers or we are selling maybe cheaper items and this is all fine. I'm not trying to question anyone's business, but speed and convenience might be your priority. And if that's the case, that's okay. And I think it's more important to lean into that to making sure you're delivering that for your customers because that's what they go in and expect.

I think if you're a, as an example, a high end sort of fashion retailer, you're not necessarily looking for speed and convenience. You're actually looking for, like a more personalised touch. You don't want the customer to feel like, you know, if they're buying a $5,000 handbag that they are buying a $5,000 handbag. You want to feel like an experience in the store. And you don't want that payment to be that jarring sort of ending to their experience. So I think it's important to work with sort of suppliers.

And maybe I'll take a step back, but I think a lot of businesses spend a lot of time trying to nail their in-store experience and then they leave that payment touch sort of as an afterthought. And that's the lasting theme. You go in, have a great experience in-store, you've trained your staff to give an over-the-top, great approach, but then you send them to a counter, they tap their card and they walk away and that's their last memory. So I think it's making sure that you know, when you're coming to streamlining payments, you're aware of what you want to offer your customer, whether it's that personalised touch or whether it's just speed and convenience, both perfectly fine depending on what you're looking for and making sure that their last memory of the store isn't, yeah, they took my money

Amie:

So perhaps me asking you how they are streamlining the process is actually not the right question because potentially we want to be putting more emphasis in understanding what that means to the retailer in that moment and then creating that sort of synergy for that demand or want.

Andrew:

I think so and maybe this is a personal opinion but I genuinely believe like the that payment experience is part of your in-store experience.

Amie:

It is. 

Andrew:

It is. You spend a lot of money on the fit out the training and everything about your store. This is part of that in-store experience and I think that should match what you're going for for the rest of your business.

Amie:

Agreed. So we know that consumers are obviously voting with their wallets. Are there any specific changes to behavior that retailers should be aware of? So we've pointed out the fact that, you know, there's a lot of things that can influence the path to purchase. And it's really about understanding your customer at that point and then meeting that need or demand. What are some of the things, what are some of the consumer shifts or behaviours that are changing that they should be aware of right now?

Andrew:

Yeah, it's a great question. I think we're probably in a world, again, going back to, the economy is always going to change. People's behaviors are always going to change. Right now, there's a lot of pressure on, you know, everyone's wallets, I guess you could say. It's fair to assume or be naive to assume that that wouldn't have an impact on how, you know, consumers are spending their money.

We've definitely seen a shift towards what we would say is larger retailers that are offering lower prices or better promotions. But equally so, probably on the flip side, we're actually seeing a lot of consumers move towards the smaller retailers. And maybe this is personal opinion, but I don't think it would be unfair to say that smaller retailers are feeling that economic pressure exactly like the consumers are. And I think consumers are actually leaning into some of those smaller businesses to go, great, I want to support you.

Or, the service and personalisation that you're providing me, while it's slightly more expensive is actually worthwhile. Or the product that I'm getting from you actually may be better quality, so it's lasting longer. I don't think it's cut and dry to go, costs are getting higher, therefore everyone's going to your local big retailer just to get the cheapest price. I think from at least what we're seeing, we're probably seeing, yes, a split and maybe it's quite a clear split and some going to the big box businesses and some moving to the smaller ones.

I think really what it does for me is it highlights that need to be adaptable if you're a business. And knowing your place, it kind goes back to what I was saying before, which is what is your value prop to your customer? If you are stuck between, yes, I'm a small business, but I want to be the cheapest, or I want to compete with the big box movers, I think you're going to have a hard time. 

Amie:

Yeah. It's not necessarily your job or your role or your purpose and you need to really be 100% on top of that.

Andrew:

Exactly and I don't think you would do either the best. 

Amie:

You can't. 

Andrew:

Yeah you can't. So I think sort of knowing what you want to provide and leaning into that is probably for me as a retailer's best bet to making sure they sort of stay competitive with all the economic pressures that's going on.

Amie:

That makes sense. So one of the key report findings was around loyalty and what options kept customers coming back during this time. So we asked consumers how they preferred stores to manage personalisation and loyalty programs to enhance the shopping experience. Now, obviously loyalty at this time is a really big thing. It costs much more to acquire a customer than it does to create that repeat business. 

46%, which was the majority, preferred the store to use its website app and or payment technology to manage personalization and keep track of loyalty. I'm keen to understand for those that aren't across it, what are some of the innovations you're seeing in the market that go beyond the traditional, well, that go beyond the traditional to manage loyalty?

Andrew:

Yeah, good question. Maybe if I start at the beginning, like a good loyalty platform probably does two things. And I think a lot of people think about the first one and probably not enough think about the second one. So the first one is, how do I reward my customer so that they keep coming back? Of course, repeat customers is what we all want. It's how we drive additional revenue. Very important. The second one, which I think probably gets undervalued, is how do I actually use loyalty to know my customers better?

Because that's probably the main way of identifying your target audience or who's actually coming into your store. You don't know anything about me if I just walk into your store, tap my card, walk out, and I'm not a member. You wanna get as many people on the loyalty program as possible, not just so they come back because they're earning rewards, but so you, as a business, can learn more about who your customers are, so you can make better decisions when it comes to marketing, it comes to getting them back.

Amie:

I could imagine that a lot of people fit into that first phase. We have identified that it's really good for business to have a loyalty program but phase two is potentially not as big yet. What are you seeing?

Andrew:

Very much so. I think phase two, people kind of are aware of the value in customer data and I don't think there's a great understanding of how to get it. And to be fair, customer data is hard to get because not everyone just wants to hand that to everywhere they shop. So I think you're right. Everyone does go down the path of let's get the first one in place because they think and it's very fair to think this too. I reward my customer, they come back. Therefore, potentially new sales and uplift in revenue. Totally fine. But getting them to come back is phase one. How do you then know who's coming back and who those people are so that you can start to build a customer profile? And I don't think we're fully there yet.

Amie:

Are there any retailers that you know and I think I know a couple of good examples internationally that are doing this personalised loyalty program well?

Andrew:

Yeah, like personalised loyalty is hard. It's hard to do. When it comes to personalised loyalty, you have to have that second step because there's nothing worse than trying to offer say like a personalised loyalty program if you don't truly know the customer. And then you're giving them something that doesn't actually fit. It's actually worse than giving

Amie:

No, I'm sorry, but that would be way worse.

Andrew:

It's worse to get it wrong because then it feels like, wow, I am just a number to them they don't even really know me.

Amie:

They don’t understand me

 Andrew:

Yeah. Yeah. But I think what we're seeing is that good loyalty providers can kind of help with both of those now. So they lead in with, here's the reward to the customer because ultimately, if you don't have step one, right, it doesn't matter how much data or insights you get or want to get if they're not coming back in the first place. And they're not going to come back to give you the data. They're going to come back because they're getting something out of it. So I think phase one, don't let me sort of undersell the importance of a good world

Amie:

Well you have to start there for phase two to be relevant.

Andrew:

Exactly, exactly and I think where that works well and this is perhaps coming into the second part of question Which is maybe around like innovation in that space is What we're seeing is card linking becoming we call it card link loyalty sort of in the industry which is effectively where you're linking sort of like your loyalty card take the Myer One Card as an example and Linking it to your credit card or debit card.

The number one sort of failure point that we see in retail, not just retail, actually I should say every industry when it comes to loyalty programs, is that I guess people are inherently lazy and staff members are often casual and potentially don't necessarily care whether you're member or not, they just wanna do their job and leave. So the biggest failure point in a loyalty program is that person in-store doing that identification moment.

If that doesn't happen, then you're dead in the water. So what we've actually seen coming up quite a lot is linking your loyalty card. And there's technical ways behind the scenes where this works and it's opt-in and we're not doing anything sort of untoward with any data. But what it is, is it's linking that payment card to their loyalty card so that instead of having to go into, again, just using Myer as an example, and saying, yep, I'm a member. They scan your membership, then you pay. Why can't you just pay? And they say, great, it's Amie's card. We know Amie is member number one, two, three. We'll just credit the points automatically. You as a consumer go, great, I don't have to remember that card. The business goes, great, I don't have to train my staff to ask every person if they're a member. And then you're getting more of the transactions than perhaps you would have. Because the other failure point we've seen in a loyalty program is because of that laziness or, I shouldn't say laziness, actually not the right term. I am too.

Amie:

I'm a lazy consumer. I really must be quite honest when I say I probably am one of the lazier. If I have to find a card in my wallet, I'm just not.

Andrew:

Yeah, exactly if you even carry a wallet like. 

Amie:

This is the thing, I have the smallest wallet and I carry things that I think I may need one day in it. And it's mainly my license because I'm too lazy to put the digital one on my phone. But I think everyone's busy, everyone prioritises in different ways and I think that…

So if we talk about convenience a lot when it comes to the path to purchase, but I've never really explored it with this loyalty piece, which I think, you know, it just makes sense. We look at convenience at every other point, whether it be in store, whether it be at payment, whether it be delivery, but I've never considered it from that loyalty case, which makes complete sense.

Yeah, it's quite new technology. There's not a lot of providers or businesses that do this yet. I think that's probably where we'll see it go. So it's quite interesting to see how this plays out. And the unique thing that I think is beneficial about this is like, you're capturing more transactions that meet that criteria. So like, for example, you may, if I keep going down the Myer path, it may be a, you have to buy something very cheap, very inexpensive, maybe some Easter eggs, because it's Easter.

Amie:

Yeah. 

Andrew:

You may just go, it's too cheap, or it's not worth my time to dig through my handbag to find my money for this $20 transaction. The points I earn on it next to nothing. I'm just going to walk away. Now you may think, well, good, because now I don't have to reward you with points. So as a retailer, I'm actually not losing money and you've made the purchase. But what you are losing is that identification of who made that transaction. 

Amie:

Yeah.

Andrew:

And the value that that could add downstream. It's worth giving them the small amount of points, even though they didn't really do anything to potentially push for it. But you get that data point back. Because data, having repeat customers is very important, as we know, and marketing to them and getting them back in store is very important. But what you'll find a lot of retailers do, if they don't have the data, is they'll start to run campaigns like win back campaigns. Hey, haven't seen you in Myer for a while. Come back, we'll give you 10% off.

What if you were there buying Easter eggs? But now you don't know because you made that transaction a little bit more painful than it needed to be. They're giving you a win back campaign which is 10% off. You didn't even actually stop going. But now they're giving you a discount for effectively nothing. Well, you're already a repeat customer. So that data point's actually worth something.

Amie:

I can imagine. And so, keen to understand that you said that this is relatively new technology, so it's not widespread in terms of use yet.

Andrew:

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Because to be honest, there's a little bit of technical work that goes on behind the scenes to make this happen. We've got to make sure from a compliance perspective that retailers can't use cards to identify people. Things like that. People still need to remain anonymous. So from a payment provider perspective, yes, we're reading the card, but we never actually see any information of the person. All we do is go to card 123 and its member ABC and we match it and we hand it back to whoever the loyalty provider is. So the intent for the payment provider in this example isn't to replace the loyalty provider. I think we do what we do best, they do what they do best. All we're doing is just providing a match and handing it to someone else and go, you kind of provide the reward, the data, the insights, the..

Amie:

You join the dots.

Andrew:

We just joined some dots that perhaps weren't able to be joined beforehand. There's a few things to work out behind the scenes, which we've done, for example, with a company like Hello Clever, which is just a matter of making sure that all the pieces talk to each other so that the retailer is actually getting that value.

Amie:

And how, how like in terms of Hello Clever is that that's relatively new?

Andrew:

Yeah Hello Clever is relatively new

Amie: 

And there are people on the platform?

Andrew:

Yeah, there are people on the platform already so it's not that new that it's conceptual. This is actually exists in reality now.

Amie:

Which is exciting. 

Andrew:

It is very exciting right and we see the likes of companies like Hello Clever which are going to market as like a sort of a loyalty, you know customer insights platform, which is great They're using this today. We also see companies who are doing it in their own ecosystem. So Hello Clever is a third party app. You may not want to use a third party application to provide your loyalty. You may want an in-house one. And that's okay too. There's some technical work that would need to be, let's call it connecting the pipes to make sure that the data flow is successful. But some retailers and some even large hospitality providers are actually just connecting those pipes and doing their own little proprietary thing.

Amie:

Very good, very exciting. It is, it is. And I can tell there's a very big smile there. It's nice when you're able to sort of bring something to the table that's going to be so useful, but also it's kind of new and exciting and joining those dots in such a cool way. And now back to the report that we did together. Another of the stats that shows the direct impact of CX, poor CX on purchasing decisions. And I'm quite sure that we've all been there. Most of the people listening will have been. 43.7 % of customers have actively avoided stores because of long lines. I'm lazy and I'm impatient. 

Andrew:

I've been there.

Amie:

What ways are retailers rethinking how customers are served in store to prioritise, I think what you mentioned earlier in terms of that speed and convenience piece. 

Andrew:

I think that's actually a good question. There's probably two schools of thought on this from my opinion. The first one is speed and convenience. And that really is around how do you streamline that purchasing process in store? Like I think if you have a business that has a queue, that's A, it's probably a good thing because you've got a lot of customers that are interested in your product.

But B, how do you make that queue not daunting for those customers that come in? And how are you positioning that in a way that's not off-putting, or if someone comes into the front of your store, that they're not just turning around and walking back out? So speed and convenience is one thing. But I think for your business, that probably leans into a model where it's more volume-oriented. If you've got a queue, you're probably doing good turnover, which is great. But in the same vein, you could look at something like the experience, let's say the in-store experience as a way of potentially cube busting or a reason why you might look at something like cube busting. 

So think you know, you have 10 people that are working around your store. The traditional model would be that those people are actually, you know, I say 10 people, mean 10 staff members, the traditional model would be like those staff members are walking around helping people. But at the end of the day, they're sending them straight back to the counter, which is where they're going to complete their transaction.

In a world where you may be prioritising speed and convenience, like that may be the fastest way because you just want your staff member to move over to the next customer and just help them through. And then effectively you're creating a pseudo bottleneck at the counter, which is fine, right? In that case, you want to speed that process up as much as possible. The flip side is why don't we move to a world where there's an opportunity for those staff members to actually just complete the transaction then and there, if they're helping you, let's say at a change room or if they're helping you on the floor of the store.

Who's to say they can't use some of the new payment technology that's coming around embedded payments to be able to just complete that transaction then and there? 

Amie:

It's the dream, Andrew. 

Andrew:

It's the dream indeed, right? And not only are you effectively queue busting, which is a term I don't love, but you're effectively queue busting, you're also giving that customer a good experience too. You're not just speeding up that process, that jarring process at the end of the transaction. You're actually sort completing the experience.

Amie:

Yeah, and you don't feel like a number it's more personal the person that has shown you what might suit you the most or brought you what you liked or whatever it might be they're the person that's completing the transaction which makes it so much more personal as well.

Andrew:

Yeah, exactly. I think there's a place for both. Like I don't want anyone listening to think, you know, we have to move towards that versus this. I think if you're, you know, a box moving business and it's about volume, that's actually totally fine too. And that process is where it's probably less personal and it is about volume. That's totally acceptable.

But it's good to know that there's industries, there's solutions, there's point of sale providers, as you can imagine. We work quite closely with those in the payment industry. Point of sale payments go hand in hand. But there are other ways of looking at it instead of just how do I speed up the queue? Maybe disperse the queue. Maybe let your staff members take on a bit more of that completing the transaction. 

Amie:

That makes sense. So really identifying what that  experience looks like from the outset and maybe curating for your business need as opposed to, you know, just going with the standard in-store experience and counter. 

Andrew:

Exactly, exactly. And if I was to use one example, think like, Apple Store. They've probably been doing this to an extent for many years now that we've all sort of participated in, at least if you've shopped at an Apple Store, should say. A lot of  people have. If you look, if you walk past, you know, they've got the nice glass front so you can see exactly how many people there are in there.

And if you look at how many queueing in a counter, there's zero. 

Amie:

Because they don't have a counter, Andrew

Andrew:

They're queuing out the front end. They're queuing out the front to get into the store. Yes, they have a separate problem. Actually a very good problem to have. But they actually aren't queuing at a counter. They're on the floor with the person who's assisting them. They're looking at the product and that person is assisting them is really just completing the transactions.

If you made them all line up in store, can tell you it would look like a very different experience in there. I think they do that very intentionally.

Amie:

So I'm keen to unpack the opportunity here for small businesses. I think you spoke to earlier in terms of consumer behavior and the way their purchasing decisions or behavior has changed. I think you spoke about big business obviously has that benefit of being able to offer bigger, better discounts. But there is this category, it was 24.2 % of respondents continue supporting small independent businesses who offer quality, convenience and a community focused approach. So my question, how can SMEs make improvements to make improvements to their payments process to make the most of this continued support?

Andrew:

You've probably hit the nail on the head as far as like how SMEs can separate themselves from like the larger retailers out there. It's that convenience, it's that, you know, personalised touch that they offer. And there are a couple of ways that they could do that. I think, you know, first and foremost, like you've got to remember that the customer's there. And I know we've spoken previously around how, you know, you may want to interact with them in store. I think it's also important that they're also a participant in this interaction and sometimes they actually may come to you with a desire of how they would like to interact with this store and if I put the payments lens on it this could be things like just making sure that you're accepting more ways to pay so this may be you know credit card and debit card is a no-brainer right cash is a no-brainer even though it's starting to decline but what are the other things that you can be out there to accept you know if you're in a very tourist centric location maybe accepting something like Alipay or an alternative payment method is important because while you may prefer one method, you may have customers that actually would like to interact with you in a different way. 

And I think it's important to just stay across those things and make sure that, you know, the last thing you want to do is turn a customer away because they really want to interact with you in a particular method and you can't support it. 

Amie:

It's so annoying when that happens, by the way. It is so annoying. Walking away when you want to purchase but can't. 

Andrew:

Yeah. And they may say, you know, I've seen it time and time again. Oh, look, we can't accept that, but come back with a different payment method. Guess what? No one comes back. Yeah. They've gone somewhere else. They've gone to a competitor or they've just decided. 

Amie:

They were too mad. 

Andrew:

Yeah, I'm too mad. Or you know what? Whatever was that fringe purchase that I was going to make that I was already borderline on the head, in the head. I'm just, you know what? This is a sign that I shouldn't make that purchase. And that's a sale lost.

I think it's worth knowing that there are other things like, you know, split payments, which, you know, a lot of payment providers can offer. Should that be sort of valuable to how they want to pay? 

Amie:

It's something we always want to do, but it's so hit and miss about, you know, whether it's an option or not. 

Andrew:

Exactly. And I think it's not necessarily like you have to go out there and promote these things either. And you can if you would like, but it's just allowing the option to be there so that you're turning less people away. I think that's probably, that's probably the key. 

Amie:

Yeah. Or you're putting the burden of payment onto them outside of the experience. 

Andrew:

Exactly. 

Amie:

No one loves to be doing, stuck there doing the transfer, you know, after a nice meal out, et cetera, et cetera. 

Andrew:

Exactly. It does change the experience for people. It really, it really does. And it's sort of funny. It really highlights, you know, I've spoken about moving away from that transactional experience. When you get to this moment, it becomes very jarring and very like off putting and, it's no one's fault necessarily. It's just a very stark reminder of, yeah, they wanna take my money. And now I'm working to give it to them. 

Amie:

Yeah, and it feels like, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, because you're far more in this than I am, but it feels like something that potentially for both big retailers and small retailers has been under prioritised when it comes to experience, because this is the transaction moment but it's often overlooked I think, when it comes to consideration and strategy on what the customer actually wants or needs or prefers at that point. 

Andrew:

I couldn't agree more. We're in a world where technology is so rapidly improving and it would be almost naive to assume that payments and the way people want to pay isn't caught up in that same rapid improvement.

We used to be pretty comfortable going: it's cash and card and that's kind of what we cover them to be fair, you know, five years ago, 10 years ago, that would have covered 99.9 % of all transactions. Nowadays that percentage is increasing of these like, what we would call alternative payment methods, know, think Bitcoin and know, cryptocurrencies, they're perhaps less common at the moment, but I'd imagine we're just moving down a path where they're becoming more and more and more common. I don't imagine they're going away anytime soon.

Amie:

It's a good example. Okay, so on that note, looking ahead, what are some of the payment trends that might not be big yet or, you know, like Bitcoin or crypto, they're not widespread at the moment, but could really change how retail works in the future. So what should retailers be thinking about now to get ready for these types of changes?

Andrew:

The way I think about this question is like don't, I guess, skimp out or don't put payments or any, to be fair, any part of your business is an afterthought, even if it's, you you may focus on your in-store experience, like what everything looks and feels like, making sure the fit out is beautiful, all very important things, but don't let it end there.

Like actually walk through the life of the customer and go, great. I walk in, because I'm sure you do this today. You walk in, this is what it feels like, this is how we buy things, this is how we interact. But don't just go, great. Actually extend that out to like the final moment, which is the systems that revolve around making sure all of this happens smoothly. And I don't even want to just, you know, silo that to payments. I think that's valid for like your point of sale system, your inventory management systems, and all these sort of things that talk to each other to make that pass move. 

Amie:

Or impact the overall journey and customer experience? 

Amie:

Exactly. And I think it's worth making sure that you actually think about it properly and assess the options. And you may not know what you're looking for necessarily, but don't let that just go, well, I don't know, so I'm just going to pick the cheapest thing or whatever the off the shelf thing is. Not necessarily that, you know, there's anything wrong if you've done that already. But make it a constant point of like, review for your business to go, am I up to date? Don't just let it, so often we see this, they'll start a business, they'll sign up with a point of sale provider, a payment provider, whatever it may be, and then that just becomes something that they sort of now go tick, that's done, and they think about it 

Amie:

It's a set and forget. 

Andrew:

It is, it is. Because it kinda just works. And you know when it's a problem, but you don't really think about it if it's just chugging along. 

Amie:

You don't know what you're missing.

Andrew:

Exactly. So I think it's important to constantly review it and then trying to align yourselves with technology providers that are future thinking or that at least you think are moving in the right direction doesn't necessarily mean you have to take up everything everyone has and accept everything that's possibly on offer. But partner yourself up with the right suppliers and the right you know providers.

Amie:

And when it comes to that review piece I think this is a really interesting one for me because what you've said today is quite logical in terms of its practicalities. When it comes to this review piece, particularly for what we've been talking about today in terms of that purchasing moment, what should people be considering? What's not working, what is working? I think people see the transaction made, it's working. What should we be out for? 

Andrew:

Yeah, great question. I think there's, there's a few different ways you can do this and again, it's sort of a tricky question to answer because there's so many different pieces that could be reviewed.

It's making sure that you're not just leaving it as a set and forget. It's from time to time almost putting yourself through the customer journey. 

Amie:

I was about to say, it's sort of like mystery shopping your own experience where you go, okay, I'm walking in to the point where I'm walking out. 

Andrew:

Do the whole thing. Don't just mystery shop your staff members to make sure they're supporting. Mystery shop end to end.

Amie:

And really put yourself in the mind of the consumer because, well, I mean. 

Andrew:

We are all consumers at the end of the day. We would have our own ingrained habits though, so we would know how we'd want to pay organically. You sort of need to understand it from end to end through multiple use cases. Yeah, interesting. And it's keeping across, like you're a consumer, everyone's a consumer at the end of the day and we all shop at various different places.

It's really just, I suppose being a little bit conscious of like when you're performing these activities in your day to day lives, is that an experience you enjoyed? Is there something that they're doing that you're potentially not? Is there something that they are doing that you absolutely hate? And then maybe you go, we might be actually doing that too. Cause so often it just sort of works like going back to what you were saying and that's it.

The other thing I think as well is like, listen to the customers like customers, you know, there's that saying customers are always right and to an extent when it comes to like how they interact with you, they are. 

Amie:

They know how they want to interact or do. Yeah. 

Andrew:

And if they come in and you're starting to see a trend, if I use Alipay as an example, just an example, and you're starting to see a trend, don't make sure somehow you're conscious of this trend happening. And that may be just educating your staff members because to be fair, you're a small business owner, you're probably working in the store and you're seeing this firsthand. But if you're not day to day in the store, you're probably one step a little bit removed, which is totally reasonable. But how do you make sure that your staff are sort of educated and feel confident that they can bring insight back to you about what your customers are looking for? 

Amie:

I suppose it's just that mindset of integrating this part of the customer journey into your customer experience mindset. And if you aren't reviewing your customer experience holistically, well, you're probably in trouble. So just making sure that this is added in, terms of that thinking and that review makes complete sense. 

Andrew:

Yeah, I'm a big, I'm a sucker for like a brand identity. In a past life, I used to do graphic design and things like that. And I think a brand identity is, it covers a big part of your business. So you've got your in-store, which is how you day to day interact with your customers. But also, you've got an online store, so that is an extension of your business and you need to make sure, while it may be more transactional online, you gotta make sure it's still an extension of your brand and make sure that the way your two systems interact with each other makes sense. Makes sense to you, makes sense to the customer. And I think the payment experience is part of that. Like your brand identity extends from when they walk in the store or into your website to when they've left.

It doesn't just go as far as when they've tried on an item or picked something up off the shelf. I think it goes all the way through. And it's always good just to keep reviewing that end to end. To make sure you're happy with it and make sure customers are happy with it. 

Amie:

It makes complete sense. Well, thank you Andrew for joining us on Retail Untangled. 

Andrew:

You're more than welcome.