UK retailers 'are failing to connect on- and offline CX'

UK retailers are falling short when it comes to coherent customer experiences across their physical and digital footprints, potentially leading to loss of revenue in a stark contrast to their counterparts in the US.

So says new research from Kin + Carta, conducted with YouGov, which quizzed 2,100 consumers in the UK and found that 45% of respondents have never felt a connected experience between in-store and online experiences when shopping – revealing a large potential revenue stream that is untapped.

This loss of income due to disconnected experiences was highlighted by the fact that 66% of UK consumers said they had “spent more time and money than intended [with retailers] that gave them an immersive retail experience”.

In contrast, in a separate survey conducted in the US carried out by Kin + Carta and SurveyMonkey, only 11% of consumers have never encountered connected in-store and online shopping experiences. Some 62% of respondents from the same survey, reported experiencing shopping that connected both in-store and online.

The YouGov research also saw that 54% of people in the UK said that they ‘didn’t have a positive experience in-store when a retailer used their personal data’, with only 14% seeing value in sharing personal information. In the US, 41% of consumers have seen their personal data being put to good use in the retail environment.

In addition, retailers are not communicating the benefits of smartphone experiences when it comes to retail, with Brits not seeing the value in smartphones in the shopping experience and 68% of respondents believing that they are not important. Further proof emerged in the fact a quarter (26%) of people from the UK spent less than 10% of their time on the phone to shop.

Most UK consumers have, ‘never seen an interactive retail experience’ be it in a physical retail store (46%), on a store website (34%) or on a store app (38%), while more than half of UK consumers (55%) have not recommended store websites to family or friends because of their interactive retail experience.

Kin + Carta retail portfolio director Matt Hildon commented: “This research paints a stark picture of the gulf between what customers want to see to improve their experiences and what retailers are offering.

“The fact is that customers are simply not having cohesive experiences of retail brands between their physical footprint and their digital channels. Unfortunately, this dissonance is impacting retailers’ bottom lines by missing the opportunity of revenue uplift by a connected omnichannel experience.

“Crafting a fluid omnichannel experience is less about chasing particular technologies and more about understanding customers’ needs. Fulfilling those needs requires a meticulous understanding of available tech, the appropriate use cases, and your customers.

“It’s at this intersection that true, valuable innovations are made, but without an efficient data infrastructure to parse the information and generate useful insights, you’re just shooting in the dark.”