As COVID-19 continues to cause disruption, we examine how the framing of customer feedback can impact communications with consumers and citizens both.
Category: Talking Points
13 retail experts on life after COVID-19
While many retailers have been focused on the fundamental necessities just to keep operations running over the last few months, as we start to look towards a world in which stores are open again, the question arises, what will be waiting for us on the other side? We went out to some of the finest…
NRF 2020: Key Takeaways
It was a vintage year at #NRF this time round, despite the floor perhaps being a little lighter than some previously, the array of delights on offer was as impressive as ever. It feels like something of a shock that it’s all over, but having had a week to digest the highlights over some much…
Has an experience-focused HMV found its mojo again?
For those with an interest in the retail landscape, the opening of HMV’s flagship store the Vault presents yet another interesting example of a well-established retailer taking an ‘experience-first’ approach. Considering how things were looking for the brand at the beginning of the year, the fanfare which the opening of the Vault is a receiving, is…
Finding the Right Retail Metrics for Your Business
In his recent article “The Way We Measure Retail Store Performance Needs to Change” M&A banker Richard Kestenbaum puts forward a strong case for retail to re-consider which metrics they are using to measure success. Retailers tend to rely on two key metrics for store performance: sales per square foot and store income statements. Sales…
How Did I Do?
Top retail influencer and friend of TruRating Andrew Busby, recently celebrated the publication of his first book: Harry Was Right All Along is a collection of short stories from the high street, tracing the ups and downs of the ‘profoundly human’ business of retail. Writing with an experts eye for detail, the collection offers “a refreshing…
Is Nordstrom putting customer convenience above the competition?
In ‘shock of the week’ news Nordstrom, announced that it will be accepting returns from two major department store rivals – Macy’s and Kohl’s – at its recently opened NYC concept stores, Nordstrom Local. With returns a pain point for customers and retailers alike, the strategy marks a bold leap into the prioritisation of convenience…
Introducing… the CX Primer
Making Sense of CX In today’s information overload world, while it may feel like access to near anything imaginable is only a quick Google search away, it can be hard to cut through the noise to find the relevant information you’re looking for. Sometimes what we really need is a curator’s hand to point us…
Dirty Floors and Retail Basics
While there has been a tendency to paint e-commerce as the thorn in the side of traditional retail, a recent article in Forbes – Cleanup in Aisle 5? – suggests there are some more fundamental problems at play for the brick & mortar crowd. As reporter Joan Verdon notes, a study from facilities management platform…
What lies in store for the future of retail metrics?
Typical – you wait an hour for one article about the inadequacies of our current methods for measuring retail performance, and two turn up at once. Recently at TruRating Towers we came across two interesting articles both questioning the validity of today’s most commonly used retail metrics. Writing in Forbes, Richard Kestenbaum’s “The Way We…
NPS: where next for the Net Promoter Score?
NPS was developed by an employee of Bain & Co consultancy in 2003, to provide a way to measure customer satisfaction as it correlated directly to increased sales. The method – traditionally a simple one question survey – asks customers to rate their experience on a scale from 0-10. An NPS Score is derived by…
The Amazon Fake Reviews Trap: Freakin’ Cheatin’ and What Businesses Can Do To Avoid It
It’s all over the news about Amazon and fake reviews and yet—is it really news? Amazon does its best to tackle the fake review problem but are any of us truly shocked to find that they’re still being gamed? In a world where “fake news!” has become a common battle cry, what is perhaps surprising…
Are Customers Really Too Busy to Give Feedback?
52% of senior leaders believe customer experience is the “most important way” to differentiate their brands—that’s great, but many brands struggle to find out exactly what their customers think of their experiences, making it difficult for them to make informed improvements. We believe that if you make the process of collecting feedback quick and simple, the…
UK Retail: The Survival of the Fittest
For those of us who’ve been a part of the UK retail industry for any length of time, April headlines are the source of many knowing smiles—bouncing madly as they do between projections for the perpetual death of the high street, and better-than-expected announcements from the larger brands who compete on it. Yes, there are…