In-Store Advertising – How Do Your Customers Feel About It?

in-store advertising customer basket

Customer Perceptions has spent two decades working with clients across a wide range of sectors – now we’ve asked some questions about in-store advertising.

Retail has always been a highly competitive sector, and it’s only getting more so. So what’s the best way to inform customers of your offers, guide them to best value and bring them into your shop again and again? This time around, we’re looking at one specific method and analysing how effective it is, and how to maximise that effectiveness: In-Store Special Offer Advertising. Here’s 5 simple points to help you maximise its effectiveness.

1st – Customers and In-Store Advertising

We asked over 140 customers: Do you think supermarkets use too much in-store advertising to promote special offers? As might be expected in a sector where advertising and salesmanship is so well examined and refined, the most common answer (over 48%) felt supermarkets were using “Just the right amount”. About 28% felt it was used “a little too much”. 17% felt it was not used enough and only 7% felt it was excessive. On the whole then, it seems in-store advertising is something that stores can use very effectively – the vast majority of people like it, with a significant minority (that 17%) who would welcome more of it.

2nd – Who does it best?

In terms of best practice, Tesco comes out way on top, with almost 45% of respondents choosing them as the most effective user of in-store advertising. Super Valu came a distant second with around 18% of the responding customers choosing them. The other contenders – Dunnes Stores, Marks & Spencers, Aldi and Lidl came distant, distant runners up, the lowest being Dunnes, which came in at just under 8%. The others all hovered around 10% each. Tesco is the store to beat, here – retail customers seem really to respond to how they handle in-store advertising.

3rd – The Special Offers Leaflet

                Asked if they would pick up a special offers leaflet at the door, overwhelmingly our responding customers agreed that they would, at least some of the time. While only just under 23% suggested that they would make a point of picking up the leaflet every time, almost 54% responded that they would pick it up some of the time, and only just over 23% declared they would never pick one up. Between the “every time” and “some of the time” customer responses, that constitutes almost 77% of customers who have some interest in leaflets which makes it a simple and effective way to reach a very healthy swathe of your customer base.

4th – How effective is it?

                Apparently it’s very effective. When asked whether in-store special offer leaflets enticed customers to spend more than they’d intended, almost 71% of respondents answered yes. Most customers find themselves convinced to part with extra cash by the special offers leaflet. It’s perhaps understandable, given the answers from responding customers to question one – people like in-store advertising, therefore when it advises them that something is good value, they tend to trust it.

5th – Why? And how do I maximise?

                In-store advertising (especially the special offers leaflet) is a very effective form of communication between you and your customer – with responses like the ones we’ve seen, it seems obvious that it should be an absolute cornerstone of any retail business’s customer communications policy. As we’ve said, people like in-store advertising, so they trust it. Also, in-store advertising by definition is advertising directed to people who have already chosen to engage with your business. They’ve come into the shop! Therefore they’re more likely to be coaxed through to a sale. These facts make it an absolutely crucial element of your sales strategy, and it’s foolish to neglect it.

One thing to think about, however, is who exactly this advertising is aimed at. In-store advertising isn’t some cynical marketing trick aimed at pumping a little more money out of unsuspecting consumers. Rather, it is aimed at the more long-term, sustainable goal of bringing customers back. The in-store advertising should be a way of drawing customers’ attention to new products, new offers – things that might represent genuine value, savings or novelty for them. The special offers leaflet is two things – a treasure map, showing where in your store the best deals are waiting, and also, while it’s in their hands, a  reminder to your customers of your own commitment to value.

It is a reminder that you’re working for them, to give them the best value they’ll get anywhere in this crowded and competitive marketplace.

Why Your Customers Aren’t Online Shopping

Online Shop Customer Perceptions

“Things Got So Bad, I Shopped Online!”
– Why Your Customers Aren’t Online Shopping.

Customer Perceptions has been in business for 20 years, providing mystery shopping services, customer satisfaction surveys and consultancy services to businesses across Ireland and The UK. We’ve picked up some insights over that time, and the last topic we turned our attention to was online shopping. We got 365 responses to our online shopping survey, and they turned up some interesting results about why potential customers won’t be using your online shopping service, and of course some insights as to how you can fix that.

1st– The Numbers.

The first thing to consider (and so the first question we asked!) was simple: how many people have done a grocery shop online? If you’re trying to entice customers off the street and onto an online shopping service, then the results should be encouraging – more people had shopped online than not. Almost 53% of respondents said that they had done a grocery shop online. That initial good news gets punctured immediately, however – of our 365 respondents, over 92% have grocery shopped online less than once a month, only about 5% grocery shopped 1-2 times a month, with a tiny 2.75% shopping online 3 or more times a month. The question then presents itself- why the dramatic drop off? And why do people choose to shop online in the first place?

2nd – The Reasons.

We asked the respondents to explain a little, and the first place answer as to why they would shop online was that it was more convenient – 45% of people said that. 31% didn’t have time to visit a store, while almost 16% felt it was easier for them to budget by shopping online. About 8% shopped online because there were better deals to be found, and another 8% lived too far from the store. Immediately it should strike that there are two themes – the people who found it more convenient, the people who didn’t have time to visit a store and the people who lived too far from a store constitute 84% of respondents, and all these reasons are convenience and time-management related. Only 24% of respondents (the people who felt it was easier to budget and the people who liked the online deals) seemed to be taking value and money issues into consideration. 24% of respondents also gave us some other specific reasons, which should shine a little more light on what ultimately drives people to shop online.

3rd – The Problems

Almost 24% of respondents went to the trouble of giving us specific comments, and these are some of the most enlightening elements of our survey. 6 people specifically mentioned access to a car – when it broke down or wasn’t available, they went online. 2 mentioned injury or acquired disability as a reason, while 5 mentioned an event or circumstance that required them to move online – a family gathering in one instance, a new baby in another. A further 7 people used the online option as a result of a particularly large or heavy load. That’s a total of 20 people who turned to online shopping in an emergency or exceptional circumstance. 7 People mentioned that they tried it out due to an offer on online shopping at the time (most commonly free delivery) and 6 people tried it simply from curiosity or novelty value. It seems clear – most people view online shopping as a reasonable option in an emergency or exceptional circumstance, but are slow to adopt it as a regular method of grocery shopping.

4th – So What Can I Do?

There’s a resistance to online grocery shopping. We also got some comments suggesting people feel more in control of their shopping when they’re actually shopping for themselves in-store. People are happy to turn to Online Shopping in an emergency or exceptional circumstance, but apparently they rarely embrace the experience as their standard method of doing “the big weekly shop”. However, 24% having tried it due to reasons of budgeting and online offers is not insignificant, so it certainly seems worthwhile to promote those ideas. Also, if the majority of people are turning to online shopping as a response to difficult events, they’re probably in no position to sit down and work through any better value they did receive on those occasions that they did shop online. If a customer has tried online grocery shopping as a one off, it may be useful (after a reasonable period) to get in contact about the value the customer did receive on the occasion that they shopped online, and the value they could receive by doing it again. Emphasize the control the customer has – mention how they can choose their own substitutions and how they’re free to return any substitution that doesn’t suit.
You can’t control the circumstances that initially bring these customers to you, but it’s by answering these reservations that you can bring one-off online customers back again and again and again.

Six Ways to WOW! Your Customers!

Wow Customers!

We’ve been talking to some of your potential customers, (because that’s our job!). We asked them to recount a time when they were wowed by a hospitality experience, and to explain exactly why – to identify the individual elements of the experience that contributed to them being blown away by an establishment. We called it the WOW! factor, and we’ve dissected the information we were given to try and understand exactly what a WOW! factor consists of, and to figure out how to build them every time! We got 93 responses to our query, and we broke them down based on their importance – how many people specifically mentioned each factor. Take a look at this information, it comes directly from hospitality customers, and it’s the anatomy of a WOW!

  1. Complimentary elements. Free stuff!

This might surprise you, but while it did inevitably merit a mention in the poll, it didn’t feature as anything like the most important factor. In fact it tied with our next category for least important. Customers certainly like it when they get something for nothing, but it’s really not a deciding factor for them. Also, while we had one respondent relate the extravagant story of hotel upgrades when the staff discovered her future-husband was proposing, for the most part people were mentioning things like loyalty cards that entitled them to a free coffee after so many purchases. Little things can go a long way, because ultimately this isn’t what most people are looking for. It’s a nice-to-have for customers, not a must-have.

  1. Facilities.

Tied for bottom in importance with complimentary elements was facilities. That should probably be a relief, since facilities can be expensive to change. Parking, for example, was mentioned once or twice, but can be something largely out of your hands – the space you have around your business isn’t something you can realistically change. What is within your power to change – and made up most of the comments about facilities, by the way – was cleanliness. With some staff diligence it’s simple to implement and it’s important to people, especially in the hospitality sector. Chances are, in this sector, people are coming to you for food. Seeing evidence of a real commitment to cleanliness puts your customers’ minds at ease.

  1. Price.

It might be surprising that out of 93 respondents, only 28 specifically mentioned price as a factor in their WOW! experience. Now, we’re not saying value for money isn’t important to people – after all, even in this poll almost a third of respondents mentioned price specifically, and that’s a significant percentage – but in terms of what blows customers away, it’s not as important as you might suspect. There’s also a distinction to be made about what factors initially draw a customer to your business – the WOW! factor is very much about drawing people back to your business a second time, and in a survey about trying out a new restaurant price might have featured more highly. BUT! With those provisos in place, and in terms of wowing customers, it seems like people are willing to pay for experiences they find to be exceptional, which should be encouraging!

  1. Atmosphere.

We’re getting into the more important factors now, with about a third of people citing atmosphere as a crucial factor in their food and beverage experience. Like facilities, this is an element that in certain ways it might be difficult or expensive to do anything about – a few of our respondents mentioned things like mountain and sea views or medieval castles – obviously difficult to organise if you’ve got a small town-centre café. What should be encouraging, though, is that for the most part, when they talked about this category, respondents mentioned a “welcoming” atmosphere. That’s something well within the reach of any establishment to achieve – a little attention and a polite, warm attitude from staff might save you having to find a castle to stick on the premises!

  1. Food and Beverage Quality.

This one almost goes without saying. It was the second most important factor for respondents to our poll. Food and drink is the lifeblood of the hospitality industry, it’s ultimately what gets your customers’ bums onto your seats, and it seems that it features heavily in terms of what wows a customer too, so take care and invest in it. There are some ancillary elements to food and bev that might be easy to overlook – presentation was important to people, but also staff knowledge about the menu – when a customer asks a question about an item, they shouldn’t be met with a blank stare. Ideally, they should be met with a confident understanding of the product.

  1. Staff/Service.

72 out of 93 respondents specifically mentioned this factor, making it the most-mentioned factor in creating a WOW! experience in our poll. More than three quarters of our respondents felt it was worth specifically mentioning, but if you read over the other factors, you’ll see how many of them rely in some measure on your staff. Certainly, it’s possible to argue that of the six factors we identified, four of them rest on staff behaviours and competencies (the cleanliness of your facilities, the welcoming atmosphere, etc.). It’s a striking reminder of just how valuable an asset your staff is, and should give pause for thought – how well-trained are your staff? Do they need more guidance in the performance of their duties? Answer these questions well, address the issues that they raise, and our poll suggests you’ll have spent your time and effort well.

Ultimately, as turns out, it’s people who WOW! people.

Still Blasting Customers Out of It

Customer Music

Customer Perceptions Ltd. have recently updated a survey they first conducted in 2008 and it suggests that over 70% of Piped, Background and Store Music serves to satisfy the taste of staff but is often disliked by customers.

Over 400 Customers and 200 Staff were surveyed in 70 outlets across the Island of Ireland in June. The outlets ranged from fast food outlets to middle class restaurants and top hotels, from fashion boutiques to department stores, auto accessories shops, mobile phone retailers, small and larger supermarkets and stationers & newsagents.

Customer Perceptions has experience of compiling some 340,000 “Mystery Shopping” reports for its clients over nearly 20 years but as Company Director, Emma Harte, explains; “We looked at this subject of in-store music about 8 years ago and we think it interesting that the findings have changed very little. The original idea of the survey started in our own canteen, most of our team agreeing that music in stores was often too loud or inappropriate for the target customer of the store in question”.

This year’s survey shows:

  • 86% of outlets staff selected the in-store music and its volume
  • 63% of cases, no formal policy exist regarding the background music selection
  • 88% of staff “liked the music played in their place of employment” (other than at Christmas time)

However

  • 58% of the customers surveyed said that they often find music levels much too loud
  • In-store music choices were disliked by 76% of the 45+ age group and 31% of the younger group
  • 59% of customers thought the music was “inappropriate for that specific store”
  • 28% of customers said that the piped music or radio was occasionally the cause of them leaving a store before they would otherwise do so or avoiding it altogether
  • 32% thought the music / radio in the background played “a significant role in the atmosphere and image created by the outlet”
  • 22% of customers said they never notice the music / radio one way or the other