Since the beginning of this year, we have watched consumer shopping behaviors change. Measuring and collecting consumer in sight allows retailers and brands to make strategic changes with the changing trends.
Case #1: Wal-Mart’s Brand Initiative.
Wal-Mart spent a great deal in researching the competitiveness of the Great Value brand against leading competitors. In doing so, Wal-Mart was able to establish areas for the brand to compete and maintain a significant presence in the market share. In Business Week, Wal-Mart’s senior VP Andrea Thomas attributes the Great Value brand strategy to customer feedback. Collecting customer feedback provided ideas from packaging changes to ice cream flavors. If Wal-Mart didn’t ask the customer, they wouldn’t know what changes to make.
Case #2: Campbell Soups
Wall Street Journal reported long-time American favorite Campbell Soups is trying new pricing and in store promotions to attract consumers. Campbell Soups will be pairing coupons with in store displays and adding updated recipes to their website. Why? Campbell consistently measured the trend of their consumers. Campbell noticed coupons and recipe downloads numbers where up, which meant this was where they needed to address consumer demands. Pairing coupons and new recipes in a strategy is a direct response to measuring shopper behavior.
Campbell and Wal-Mart are only two recent examples of a brand and retailer using consumer metrics to develop a course of action. Consistent feedback and metrics of your customer’s experience provides the best information for strategic changes. It’s putting your customer experience measurement tools to work in the best way: implementing change.
