The finding comes in a research report, which also uncovered five key strategies necessary to drive this transition. "Retail Transformation Underway: Achieving Customer-Centric Commerce" examined critical self-assessments of 150 senior executives from across all sectors of the industry, and categorized respondents into three groups: Leaders, which have taken steps to better understand consumer data and invest in customer insights, technology and organizational redesign; Followers, which have big plans to move towards customer-centric business and have made some progress; and Bystanders, which showed a lack of meaningful progress or plans.

“Customer-facing tools such as smartphones, tablets, and in-store kiosks have become mission critical to the shopping experience, yet most retailers still have not integrated these tools into a cohesive system that creates circular commerce,” said Andrea Weiss, O Alliance founder. “While omnichannel was about giving shoppers a single view of a brand across all touch points, the customer-centric model is about giving the brand a single view of the shopper, understanding who she is, what she wants, and how she behaves at all times.”

The report unveiled the following key strategies leveraged by retail Leaders to successfully achieve customer centricity:

1. Track a Customer’s Behavior Across Channels. As technology continues to enable customers to engage across multiple channels, the task of tracking a single customer across a brand’s entire universe becomes more and more challenging. In fact, fewer than 43 percent of Bystanders are using data to effectively segment customers and only 14 percent are leveraging data to understand and map the customer journey. To achieve true customer centricity, retailers must connect a shopper’s activities online, in store, on social media and via mobile apps to create a universal customer profile.

2. Measure Success of Cross-Channel Marketing. While the majority of the industry (70 percent) has evolved to using cross-channel promotions (i.e. email campaigns to drive in-store purchases), nearly half (48 percent) of all retailers still lack the ability to measure the success of these very campaigns. Customer-centric Leaders are implementing tools that provide a strategic view into each campaign, allowing them to gauge effectiveness, attribute credit to the proper promotion or channel, and leverage that insight to drive future marketing decisions.

3. Centralize Data Solutions. Many retailers still lack the proper integration solutions to effectively manage a cross-channel shopping experience. In fact, 37 percent of companies are not combining e-commerce and in-store transaction data in a central database, and only 9 percent currently link social media activity to their customer data files. Leaders, however, are adopting flexible, cloud-based solutions that allow them to easily access all product and customer information in one centralized place.

4. Structure a Customer-Centric Organization. While most companies recognize the importance of integrating business functions across channels, it’s the aggressive Leaders that are actually implementing this change, with 97 percent reporting they have integrated at least one team to date. Further, Leaders are taking steps to address the talent and leadership issues demanded by these changes, as 43 percent stated that they either have, or plan to have, a C-level executive in a customer-centric role.

5. Crush Obstacles to Customer Centricity. Though retailers readily identify various obstacles to achieving a customer-centric model, including inadequate talent (33 percent), organizational silos (29 percent), cash restraints (28 percent), questioning the promise of technology (26 percent), and lack of leadership vision (20 percent), the solution does not lie in a quick fix of any one business component. Seamless Circular Commerce will only be achieved through directional shifts across all areas of the company – from CMO and CIO offices, to Human Resources, Finance, Executive Committees and Boards.

Source: O Alliance Consulting