Customers are the most important part of the equation for you as a retailer.  Unless you have the precise business information of what your customers want or with a view that what you have is worth their while, then business wanes or declines.

This doesn’t have to be a concern if you have business intelligence. Business intelligence starts with what you bring to the table from your own head, but it is much more.  It is an analytical tool that you can arm your sales staff with.  It makes available software applications, integrating analytic, customer-centric information your staff needs to make a sale with management of products.

Customer Impact
Customer service begins with the right information available to management, sales staff, and customer before the customer arrives on the scene.  Store management can track inventory, amount of traffic, profit ratios, and asset support, made possible through an integrated retail system.  Tracking a product is made transparent at every point along the chain from ordering to sale, from profit margin to customer purchase history, from placing it in inventory to tagging it as an item of interest in a customer’s profile, and from placing customer information on sales representative’s mobile devices to sending a related item in a customer email.  The whole system is integrated without redundancy of work from a point of sale entry.  When customers do arrive, information is waiting on them to merely express interest for a certain product.

Customer service ends by analyzing a product’s impact on customer sales as well as measuring the store’s profitability has to be easily accomplished and quickly displayed for understanding.  Graphic analytic dashboards portray significant ratios, trends, current status against past performance, and more.  Through business intelligence, graphic visuals make information quick to notice and easy to read and understand.

When analytical software yielding business intelligence is used, the following five principles are a given – with every customer.
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Customer Expectations
Customers respond well to Business intelligence from sales staff when they call up information on mobile devices while being helped.

• Inform customers of history of items bought.
• Assure customers that items are in stock.
• Schedule customers for a date of delivery.

Shopper Engagement
Customers interact with the sales people for only a limited number of minutes, sometimes seconds.  So, once sales representative knows what interest customers have, they can engage customers.

• Give more than general information about a product to tip the scale for a sale.
• Add knowledge of a customer’s last purchase or general interest and deliver the sale.
• Know how to use a mobile device and show where to find a product on an app or browser to bring in off-site business.

Customer Loyalty
Customers show the loyalty when they are shown.  This can be done in several ways.

• Give reward points at point of sale to help them accumulate points for future purchases.
• Offer incentives with gift cards, additional merchandise, and travel.
• Pique customers’ interests of new products and items related to last purchase through emails and text messages.

Shopper Sources
Customers don’t always go to a store to buy.  Now they have a virtual world at their fingertips. Business intelligence allows you to be where their fingertips go.

• Keep every product current with the keywords customers type into search engines.
• Optimize your website for easy browsing and easy purchase.
• Give them a place to show their satisfaction by “liking” their experience on your social media pages.
• Allow them to “follow” your products and sales events on social media.

Customer Awe
While customers appreciate stability, they have come to expect the next innovation on a regular basis. Business intelligence keeps them abreast of product development, instilling confidence in your company.

• Update your website regularly and frequently..
• Make website navigation user-friendly.
• Highlight new products with interesting captions.