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Meet Your Retail

Customers on Their
Favorite Channels
How retailers can deliver amazing customer
experiences with social messaging
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Contents
3 Introduction

4 Social messaging in retail

5 Benefits of social messaging for retailers

5 Enhance the customer experience

6 Boost customer loyalty and retention

7 Get personal at scale

7 Unlock insights to inform business strategies

7 Set customer care teams up for success

8 How a leading eyewear retailer enhances

customer experience with social messaging

9 Keep your customers happy with Sparkcentral

 Introduction
3

Brands like Target, Lowe’s, Patagonia, and Starbucks have one thing
in common: a deep obsession with their customers. Forbes lists them
among the most customer-centric companies of the year.1

These brands are tuned into customer behavior and can adapt
quickly to changing expectations. And in recent years, those expec-
tations have shifted faster than ever toward digital and self-service
experiences.

For retailers, no event illustrates this trend more clearly than Black
Friday. Last year, shoppers spent US$9 billion shopping online—a
21.6% year-over-year increase—even while foot traffic in physical
stores shrank by 52.1% in the same period.2

As customers continue to shift their activity to digital channels,

innovative retailers are finding ways to incorporate digital tools to
enhance all aspects of customer experience. And when it comes to
customer service, one of the biggest opportunities is social messag-
ing, which enables brands to meet customers where they are: online.

In this guide, you’ll discover the growing role of digital customer

support in retail and the key benefits social messaging apps play in
shaping great customer experiences in retail.

73%
of consumers will abandon a
brand after three or fewer negative
customer service experiences.3
44%
of consumers will rarely or never
complain to a company about a
negative customer service experience,
so businesses may never know the
reason for attrition.4
 Social messaging
4

in retail
Social messaging has surged in popularity in recent years. Since as far
back as 2016, the number of people using the top social messaging
apps (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Weixin/WeChat) has con-
sistently surpassed people using the top social networks (Facebook,
Instagram, and Twitter).5

Messaging has completely transformed the way people interact with

retailers. According to Gartner, more than 60% of all customer service
engagements will be delivered via digital and self-serve channels (like
social messaging, chat apps, and live chat) by 2023.6

2b 1.3b 1.2b
WhatsApp Facebook Messenger Weixin/WeChat
 Benefits of social
5

messaging for retailers

Digital channels like WhatsApp have surged in popularity in recent
years, completely transforming the way people interact. With digital
natives expected to account for over 75% of the workforce by 2030,7
the trend toward digital channels will only grow.

And from boosting customer loyalty and retention to unlocking new

insights to inform business strategies, engaging with customers via
digital channels delivers many compelling benefits for retail businesses.

64% 2.77b
of people would prefer to message people use messaging
rather than call a business. apps frequently.
Facebook for Business9 eMarketer8

1. Enhance the customer

experience
More than two-thirds of companies now compete primarily based
on customer experience—up from 36% a decade ago.10

One proven way to create great customer experiences is by connecting

with customers on the platforms they’re already familiar with—social
media, social messaging apps, and other digital channels.

Customers today have less time and patience for phone calls, auto-
mated greetings, and hold music. Convenient and conversational,
social messaging makes it quick and easy for people to engage with
your brand and get the information and help they need—in their
own time, on a familiar channel. Messaging puts customers back in
control, where they should be.
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“Providing the utmost excellence when catering to our customer’s needs is at

the heart of noon’s ethos as the region’s leading digital marketplace. Since
teaming up with Sparkcentral by Hootsuite, our employee retention rates are
higher and customer satisfaction scores have soared, helping us in building
meaningful, lasting relationships within our 360-degree ecosystem.”

ISLAM FARRAG
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER, NOON.COM

2. Boost customer loyalty

and retention
Delivering personal service on the channel of their choice is one of the
most effective ways to surprise customers and turn them into fans for life.

According to PwC, nearly 80% of consumers say speed, convenience,

knowledgeable help, and friendly service are the most important
elements of a positive customer experience.11 By creating customized
and proactive messaging, using automation to route messages faster,
and using chatbots to quickly resolve basic and repetitive queries,
retailers can create memorable customer experiences that build
lasting, meaningful connections.
3. Get personal at scale 5. Set customer care 7

One of social media’s most powerful features is its

ability to reach precise audiences with personalized
messaging. Similarly, social messaging enables
retailers to integrate customer data into their
messaging platform to get personal with custom-
ers—even at scale.
Integrate your social media and messaging data
with your customer relationship management (CRM)
platform to ensure a seamless experience for your
customers and your customer-facing employees.
To deliver personalization at scale, customize
messaging bots and introduce some automation to
your customer engagement and customer service
workflows to handle repetitive questions.
teams up for success
Social media and customer care are the front
lines of your business. It’s where you build loyalty,
manage crises, or simply try to make sure every
customer’s needs are met quickly and effectively.
By integrating social messaging into social media
and customer care strategies, you can ensure your
teams have the right tools to succeed in their roles.
Messaging apps support rich media content like
interactive voice, video, and images, helping you
connect with customers in more meaningful ways
and gain valuable data to improve key performance
indicators (KPIs) like first contact resolution (FCR),
average handle time (AHT), and customer satisfac-
tion (CSAT).

Integrating data across all customer channels

4. Unlock insights also creates a better customer experience and a

to inform business smoother workflow for teams as it cuts out repeti-

tion and provides teams with the information they
strategies need to address customers efficiently.
When you understand your audiences, you can
build more effective social marketing strategies,
deliver customer care that makes your customers
happier, and even build better products.

Data from social media and social messaging can

help you understand how people feel about your
brand, going beyond metrics to capture the “mood”
of your audience.

Understanding how people feel about your brand

helps you keep your marketing and product
development efforts on track. It also allows you to
respond immediately to positive or negative posts
and messages—a key capability for maintaining your
brand reputation and mitigating the effects of a
potential PR crisis before it can spiral out of control.
 How a leading eyewear retailer
8

enhances customer experience

with social messaging
From the tone of its website copy to its engagement on social
media, it’s clear that stylish European eyewear brand Odette
Lunettes is laser-focused on customer experience.

In the same way that its stylish eyewear celebrates the indi-
viduality of each customer, the company also makes it easy for
customers to get in touch using the digital channels they prefer.

For example, after implementing WhatsApp to handle the

additional volume of digital engagement during the COVID-19
lockdowns, Odette Lunettes found that social messaging quickly
became a primary communication channel between the company
and its customers. Today, customers can scan a QR code on the
website to open a WhatsApp chat right away.

Using WhatsApp and other digital channels, the brand commu-

nicates with customers and prospects to answer their questions
about everything from eye exams and eyewear styles to delivery
methods. The team manages every message received from a
digital channel in a central inbox to ensure it never misses an
opportunity to interact with customers on a personal level.

“I would advise brands to look for the different touchpoints they have with
customers today. We used to advise people mainly in the store, but now we’ve
switched to selling glasses online as well. It’s a major change in the customer
experience, and we still need to grow and adapt every day.”
ELINE DE MUNCK

CEO, ODET TE LUNET TES

Keep your customers
9

happy with Sparkcentral

As customers behavior continues to shift, the popularity of social
messaging apps opens the door for streamlined, conversational expe-
riences, creating opportunities for retailers to proactively address
issues on social media and solve common customer care frustrations.

With 70% of people now expecting to message businesses more in

the future for customer service questions,12 it’s time for your business
to incorporate messaging into its social media and customer service
strategies.

With Sparkcentral by Hootsuite, retailers can manage incoming

social media customer support queries through WhatsApp, as well
as through other messaging channels including Instagram, Twitter,
Facebook Messenger, and WeChat.

You can use Sparkcentral to manage messages received via your own
digital channels like your website or app. Manage conversations at
scale through automated message distribution, using AI-powered
chatbots to address simple queries and letting live agents step in
when needed.

Sparkcentral’s platform integrates with existing ticket distribution

functions in your customer service contact center, and with CRM
systems like Zendesk, Microsoft Dynamics, and Salesforce.

To see how you can deliver an exceptional customer service experience

on every digital channel, request a demo at sparkcentral.com/demo

About Hootsuite
With over 200,000 paid accounts and millions of users, Hootsuite powers social media
for brands and organizations around the world, from the smallest businesses to the
largest enterprises. Hootsuite’s unparalleled expertise in social selling, social customer
care, and social media management empowers organizations to strategically grow their
brand, businesses, and customer relationships with social.

To learn more, visit www.hootsuite.com

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Further reading
GUIDE : Solve 4 Common Customer Care Challenges with
Social Messaging

CASE STUDIES: Social Care Superstars: 5 brands delivering

exceptional customer experiences with social messaging

BLOG: 4 Metrics to Track if You’re Using Social Messaging for

Customer Care

BLOG: Why Social Messaging is the Key to an Unbeatable CSAT Score

Endnotes
1 Forbes. 25 most customer-centric companies in 2020.

2 Sensormatic Solutions. Black Friday Results From Shopper

Insights Traffic Analytics.

3 Coveo. Relevance Report 2021: Customer Service.

4 Coveo. Relevance Report 2021: Customer Service.

5 Hootsuite. Global State of Digital 2021.

6 Gartner. Deliver Customer Service During COVID-19: Improve

Digital and Self-Service Capabilities. 2020.

7 Live Career. Millennials in the Workplace.

8 eMarketer. Global Mobile Messaging 2020.

9 Facebook for Business. 5 Reasons Travel Brands Should Focus

on Messaging. 2020.

10 Gartner. Key Findings From the Gartner Customer

Experience Survey.

11 PwC. Experience is Everything.

12 Facebook. Insights to Go.