Having product in stock or offering standard service isn’t enough anymore – if it were, department stores would be thriving instead of relentlessly declining. Today’s customers expect a great experience when they shop. Small merchants have always had an advantage over big-box stores when it comes to knowing their customers, and they can extend that even farther with accurate insights.
For example, a dry cleaner with a large customer base of families with children could offer specials on cleaning kids’ holiday clothing or prom attire at specific times of year. A café with many dog-owning customers might focus its expansion plans on spaces with patios for pet-friendly dining. What experiences can you create with your customer insights? Let’s look at some possibilities.
Give your best customers more of what they love
Tranzlogic shows you who your best customers are and what they like (and don’t like). This is the information you need to tailor you offerings to your customers’ desires.
For example, our hypothetical business owner Bettina runs a small local chain of pet boutiques. Her sales of low-margin baked treats are strong, but her higher-margin grooming tools are gathering dust. She knows a majority of her customers own large, long-haired dogs, and her grooming tools are inexpensive, so why aren’t they selling?
With her customer insights from Tranzlogic, Bettina learns that most of her customers are wealthy and they overwhelmingly prefer premium products and experiences. That explains why they’re happy to pay $2 apiece for chef-baked treats, and it explains why the low-priced grooming tools aren’t selling. Her customers want the top of the line.
Before these customer insights, Bettina didn’t feel comfortable laying out the money to stock $60 dog brushes. Now she feels confident placing an order. Her confidence – and her revenue — grows when her customers start snapping them up and telling their friends and neighbors where to buy them.
Evolve along with your best customers
John and James own a specialty running store that sells shoes, clothes, training gear, and nutritional supplements for the many recreational runners in their trendy big-city neighborhood. For the first five years, sales are steady, but then John and James notice that their regulars come in less often and the new customers they get spend less per visit than previous shoppers. What’s going on?
John and James try Tranzlogic and make a surprising discovery. Their neighborhood is now full of families with babies and young children, which means running takes a backseat to parenting. The guys decide to expand their offerings to include baby and kid running shoes. To promote their new offerings, they create a splashy “family fitness day” series of sales events to get parents into the store to shop for their children and themselves.
Their customers appreciate the shopping convenience and kid-friendliness of the store. Over time, the shop becomes the neighborhood’s first choice for kids’ athletic shoes as well as for adult running gear. Without reliable customer insights, John and James could have missed their opportunity to keep pace with their customers’ changing lifestyles.
There are many more ways customer insights can help you create great experiences. To learn more, contact us at info@tranzlogic.com or phone number here.