CXO Dinner Fosters Conversation about innovation and store experience

Written by Brendan Phelan, Co-founder and VP of Strategy at Radius8

We recently sat down with a group of visionary CXOs, in the Remodista community, to discuss in store experience and innovation.  After several hours of engaging conversation and debate, we found the following three takeaways to be particularly relevant to the Remodista network:

Measuring ROI on store innovation remains a major challenge

Amongst our panel there was no doubt that investing in the store experience is a necessity to maintain competitiveness and engage today’s retail customer. Determining which technologies best engage customers in store and which drive the greatest ROI continues to be a challenge.
 
To help, our visionaries are considering how they can better leverage the data they have and collect new types of behavioral data to better measure ROI and evaluate new technologies.

Customers no longer want tech in their faces

The days of “in-your-face” technology in store are over. Technical “gimmicks,” are not a sustainable path to differentiating the store experience. Customers really want technology that seamlessly augment their experience behind the scenes only surfacing at the right time in the right places.
 
Our visionaries pointed out a perfect example: Bluetooth connected fitting room that allow customers to play their iTunes playlist in a fitting room is unlikely to drive long term engagement and loyalty. On the other hand, an easy way to request a different size from an associate via a touch display or the consumers device is extremely valuable to the shopper. The right place, the right time, the right tech.

No time to wait for merged data - Make improvements today

A common challenge threaded through our discussion was the challenge of disparate data streams across channels with timelines for truly unified systems years away.
 
Our visionaries unanimously agreed that to win now, they are getting clever about using the data they have today and putting it to work across channel silos. The end goal: even a 10% improvement today drives a massive improvement for our customers – retailers can’t afford to wait for “perfect” data to start innovating.

What's Next?

Interested in learning more? Reach our for full notes from the conversation. Ready to add to the dialogue? Join us for the next CXO Insights Dinner.