A boutique is a one-of-a-kind store, and you want your customers to experience that every moment they are in the store.

What can you do to improve the customer experience? Here are some tips you can put in place quickly and easily.

What is Retail Experience?

The retail experience is everything that a customer sees, hears, feels, and thinks when they interact with your store. That means it encompasses everything from how your displays look to how your staff interacts with customers. It also includes product selection, pricing, and more.

Create and Use Customer Journey Mapping

Think about what your customers most often do when they enter your store and create a curated customer shopping experience that follows that path. See if you can create unexpected ways to interact with your products or displays that uniquely catch the eye.

When a customer has a cohesive experience as they walk through your store, they’ll remember your boutique as unique and enjoyable. That will keep them coming back!

Value Your Employees Ideas and Suggestions

Your staff is one of the most important assets you have when you are trying to enhance the retail experience. Make sure your employees are trained well enough to be specialists in your boutique offerings. 

Also, your employees know best what your customers look for and expect. Make sure you take their ideas into consideration when you create personalized service.

Personalized service can mean offering complimentary clothing or suggesting accessories that would go with an outfit the customer is considering. Of course, not every customer will want this kind of attention, but having it available improves the in store experience.

Put Your Loyalty Program Front-and-Center

What is customer loyalty? Loyalty means that buyers are likely to shop at your store instead of a competitor’s. One of the best ways to create loyalty is to have a high-quality loyalty program for your store.

When someone visits your location, they should find out about your rewards program right away. Signage, flyers, and information from your employees are great ways to spread the word. The loyalty program should be tailored to your customers — a B2B customer loyalty program will look a lot different than a boutique rewards program.

Tips on How to Improve Shopping Experience

If your boutique attracts families or customers with children, having a child-friendly play area is a great way to meet customer needs. The youngsters can go play with a blackboard, blocks, or other toys, while their parents can shop freely in the store.

When children are having a good time, parents have a much better time in your store. That means they are more likely to buy something. Occupied children also mean that the adults will spend more time browsing, which can help increase your revenue and profits.

Make Sure the Purchase Process is Quick

Once a customer has decided what they want to buy, it should be as easy as possible to complete the transaction. That means you should have enough people to avoid long lines, as well as create a checkout process that is as brief as possible.

Customers want to hear about perks like a loyalty program, but they don’t want to be burdened with a multi-step payment process, unnecessary forms, and more. If you can offer an employee-assisted reward program enrollment, for example, instead of a long paper form, you’re ahead of the game.

Train Staff to Manage Unhappy Customers

Customer service is essential, especially to small stores like boutiques. It’s not natural for us to be kind and empathetic to someone who is cruel to us, so training employees on how to handle unhappy customers is essential.

People want to feel important, so the first step is to acknowledge the customer’s feelings and then look for a resolution. Sometimes a manager or senior staff member will be required. However, ensure that employees understand you won’t let a customer abuse them or take advantage of the store. Employees should have confidence that managers have their back if they have to take a stand.

Think About Indirect Purchasers

Many times the person who holds the wallet is not the only person making a decision about what to buy. If your boutique caters to families, for example, a child might be picking out items for school. Or, someone may be picking out a gift for a friend.

Think about who the indirect buyer is likely to be and find ways to make things easier and more fun as they shop your store. You might put children’s clothes on lower racks so kids can more easily see what they’re buying, for instance. When you make the shopping experience enjoyable for the indirect purchaser, the money-holder will have more fun as well, which likely means more purchases and strong loyalty.

How to Improve Retail Customer Experience

You need a strategy when it comes to customer experience in your store. A purchase decision isn’t made based only on prices or appearance. The customer experience as they move through your store makes a huge impact.

If you look at this guide and implement only one idea, that will improve the customer experience. However, by using two or more of these strategies together, you can create a really unique customer journey. Those experiences are the kind that keep customers coming back again and again.

Which of these changes would make the most difference in your store? Try it today!