Performance measurement for retail teams using customer feedback:
6 critical KPIs according to half a billion shoppers
At TruRating, our data experts have been working with retailers across the globe to identify the most critical key metrics that can be used to measure store team performance, according to their customers. With over 500 million responses (and billions of associated transaction data points), in this blog series we’re going to share with you some of the best practices that Store Operations leaders are implementing to drive continuous improvement, more motivated staff, and ultimately faster growth.
In this, the first in the series, we’ll start at the end – so to speak – to give a taste of the type of key metrics that our retail partners have pinpointed as vital to customer buying behavior. This is what they are now using as KPIs against which their store teams can be measured, thus driving consistent execution despite geographical, demographic, and other differences typical of individual stores in large chains.
- A friendly greeting as customers enter the store
- Availability of staff when customers are looking for assistance
- Help the customer “experience your product” – whether in the fitting room, through samples, or a test-run
- Prompt stock replenishment – absolutely vital in Grocery
- Store cleanliness & tidiness – especially in Convenience and anywhere serving fresh food
- Making relevant recommendations – in almost every retail vertical
These are just a few of the metrics that retailers we work with are using to train their staff across all stores and ensuring compliance against. Do some of these insights resonate with you?
Although some of these behaviors relate more to a particular retail type than others, there are some surprising commonalities. For instance, even in the Convenience sector, we’ve seen that “staff making relevant recommendations” has a clear positive impact on customer spend.
Another commonality across many types of retailers is how good staff are at “getting the customer to experience the product” once they’re in your stores. This can include such as ‘fitting room assistance’ in fashion & apparel, trying out the make up & skincare products in beauty, getting them the right size shoes in footwear, and organizing a quick test drive in automotive – a disparate bunch of retail verticals, yet all have this key step in the customer journey. And if your store teams are doing their jobs well, they can have a huge positive impact on conversion rates and average transaction value (ATV).
This identification of the KPIs against which retail staff execution can so fundamentally influence your in-store customer experience is just one half of the story, however. From there leaders must measure that execution, store by store, day by day and even shift by shift, in order to be effective at driving improvements and growth. During this blog series, we’ll reveal how some of the fastest-growing retailers are doing exactly that. In our next post, we’ll be taking a look at the question strategy used to unpick the factors that make service “good” or “great”.
