In Part 5 of my blog series, I shared the key factors survey that was revealed to be critical to ensuring positive ROI from shopper insights-based initiatives.
In this last and final blog of the series, I’ll share some of the key recommendations industry experts have based on their own experiences regarding how to get the most from shopper data and insights within.
Survey findings clearly revealed that while a majority of retailers and brand manufacturers recognize the value of shopper insights and expend a great deal of resources capturing shopper data, only a select few are actually able to use the insights within to drive valuable retail decisions.
One of the key impediments is the limited availability of people with the right skill set. Aggravating the issue are existing legacy solutions that are complex to implement and integrate, and also require extensive coding to derive insights from the data. The result is that data access and usage depends on the availability of scarce IT and data scientist-type of resources; limiting the usage of data to a few choice initiatives.
To make shopper insights more pervasive within the organization and get the most value from these initiatives, follow the below 3 key recommendations:
- Ensure that access to data and analytics is available to the people closest to the business problem — without IT-dependence or delay.
To build an analytical culture and drive data-based decision making, retailers need to ensure that access to shopper data and enabling analytics is available to their frontline business and data analysts. This way, analysts can themselves derive insights from the data and use that information to guide decisions, without depending on IT or having to deal with delays that come with IT dependence.
Interactive analytical tools that enable business analysts to create models visually in a drag-and-drop environment liberate analytics from IT constraints, freeing up line-of-business analysts to perform sophisticated data blending and advanced analysis without complex coding or requiring advanced degrees in statistics.
- Build cross-functional relationships and establish joint goals to overcome fiefdoms; ensure inter-departmental cooperation.
The survey results pointed to the huge benefits that came from sharing data cross-departmentally. Understandably so, for two primary reasons a) everyone is working off of the same view of customer, and b) it builds alignment between cross-departmental decisions.
Anu Brookins, VP of Customer Relationship Management at Belk, a southern department store company, highlights the importance of analytics in building a culture of sharing and consistency amongst departments. Her team blends and analyzes data from all different channels to create customer scorecards by spend levels, purchase history, path-to-purchase and more. Initially shared informally, now this information is considered so useful that the merchandising department leverages it to optimize product assortments, the stores and online channels groups to establish promotional strategies, and then corporate planning to determine the types of formats/location mixes.
- Measure, Measure, Measure! And tie metrics of data-driven initiatives back to organizational goals!
One of the key findings from the survey was a direct connection between monitoring the impact of shopper insights and positive ROI. More of the companies that monitored the impact of shopper insights on their standard metrics reported positive ROI verses ones that didn’t.
We have seen similar results reported by our customers, including one of which is one of the world’s largest big box retailer. The company measures the impact of all changes — from promotions, to product placement, to new category introductions and even store upgrades — to understand the impact on shopper behavior and ultimately spend patterns. The company has been so pleased with the results of applying this analytical thinking across its organization that it has extended its performance analysis ability from an initial 600 stores to well over 4000 stores across the U.S.
Shopper insights and data-driven decision making does yield results, but to be successful, retailers need to continuously measure the impact of these initiatives on the organization’s standard metrics. These metrics, once established can actually help grow executive confidence and build support which leads to expanded usage in the long term.
In conclusion, I invite you to visit our retail page and see how companies like VF Corporation, Great Clips, Levi’s, Belk and many more are using Alteryx to derive shopper insights from their data, and using that information to improve targeting, localize merchandise, improve store performance and even optimize their retail network.
Are you using you shopper data effectively? Let me know if you would like to talk more on how to maximize return from your shopper data. If you like what you have read so far, please share it with your colleagues and other interested parties!
A full list of the previous blogs in this series is as follows:
Retail Shopper Insights Blog Series: An Insider’s Perspective
- The State of Use of Shopper Insights: Retail Analytics Blog Series Introduction
- Shopper Data Matters – But All is Not Equal!
- Top Uses of Shopper Insights – And Missed Opportunities!
- Roadblocks to Usage of Shopper Insights
- Shopper Insights to ROI – Factors that connect!
- Recommendations: Making Your Shopper Insights Initiatives Count!
