245: Elevating Customer Conversations

In a world where consumers crave personal connections and seek meaningful brands that stand for something, it’s essential for retailers to harness the power of conversations. Whether it’s in-store, over the phone, or through digital channels, engaging with customers through meaningful dialogue can be the difference between a disappointing customer experience and long-term loyalty. In this episode, Oliver Banks delves into the multifaceted role of conversations in the retail experience, and how retailers can effectively utilise this engagement to build lasting relationships with consumers.

Listen into this podcast episode, and you’ll:

• Understand the social nature of consumers and how engaging in meaningful conversations can elevate the customer experience.
• Discover how human interaction conversations form and influence all strong memories about a customer’s experiences.
• Learn how technology can serve as an enabler, in assisting customer interactions and facilitating rich conversations.
• Explore how you can leverage conversations to be more proactive, anticipate issues, and provide prompt solutions, all while capturing invaluable customer feedback and insight.

 

The big ideas to elevate customer experience

In this episode, Oliver shared four (five!) big ideas about customer conversations:

1. People are social and memorable. As consumers, we remember the human interactions more than the slick operating model. Start listening at 4:10.
2. Focus on growth and brand personality over cost saving. We often focus on streamlining the business and cutting parts of the operating model out to drive cost, but this presents challenges and can leave opportunities on the table. Start listening at 9:47.
3. Technology can and should help. Think about how technology can enable great customer conversations, not replace them. And don’t let this stand in the way of being a customer led company. Start listening at 14:06.
4. You have to want conversations to happen. We have to make it easy for customers to have conversations with us and we have to be proactive and start conversations when it matters most. Start listening at 19:12.
5. And a bonus idea too! Conversations allow you to be in charge of your own destiny. Start listening at 27:14.

Have a conversation with Oliver Banks

Connect with Oliver Banks on LinkedIn and let him know that you’ve tuned into the episode. You can also email him at oliver.banks@obandco.uk. It would be great to hear your thoughts and reflections from the episode, the podcast and the wider retail industry in general.

And why not start a conversation with someone else about this podcast? You could send them this episode and share a thought or question to get the conversation started. Simply suggesting the episode and conversation topic to just one person will help the ideas spread and will help develop your customer experience.

Additional podcast episodes to listen to next

There are so many more episodes in the archives that are relevant to this one – do take a look back through. However, here are the 3 episodes that Oliver suggested in the episode.

Firstly, conversations are a great way to leave a lasting impression and memory. So join Oliver in episode 59: Creating Memorable Experiences and discover how you can consider how the brain works to help drive positive experiences.

Next, the Consumer Champion, Martin Newman, one of the world’s leading authorities on CX joined in episode 97: Customer Centric Cultures. Listen to this episode now to discover how you could become more customer centric in your approach.

And finally, Capgemini’s Lindsey Mazza joined Oliver in episode 228: What Customers Want In 2023. Hear the myriad of demands from customers and consider how you and your colleagues could engage in conversations to elevate the whole experience.

Finally, there are other episodes related to today’s topic. Join Oliver in episode 242: Reinvigorating Lean Six Sigma In Retail and episode 243: Thrifty Transformation To Thrive to explore how you can drive cost savings without sacrificing customer experience. You can dive deeper into AI and take a different perspective in episode 224: 10 Thoughts On AI In Retail.

And if you have a query, reach out to Oliver to ask for a recommendation from the podcast library!