Retail customers are changing so dramatically that retailers say the only way to provide the experiences customers expect is to adopt AI and automation.
Yashwanth Kumar, group president of customer loyalty & analytics at Landmark Group, owners of retail brands like Lifestyle and Max, says customers have become very digital savvy and want the same experience in both online and offline.
If they go to a website, they want recommendations, which is what a good sales person would do in a store. And in a store, they want instant billing and self-service, like in online.
They are also the "Blinkit generation", they want quick responses, instant rewards and resolutions. This generation, Kumar says, is far more discerning too. When I was younger, we had this concept called "Friday Dressing" you had workwear and then you had Friday dressing, and then what you wear on weekends.
Now, new-gen customers have 10-15 different shopping occasions partywear, wedding wear, engagement wear, hangout with family wear, and so on. There are those who want comfort in everyday wear, but in party wear, they are not particular about comfort or quality, they just want to look nice, he says.
Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO of Retailers Association of India (RAI), says the concept of loyalty is also changing for retailers. The traditional method of loyalty was that, if a customer was not buying from us, then we would go and give them incentives to come to us. But if they were already our customers, then we would not give them any special price or gift. Those days are over. Now, we as retailers have to show our loyalty to the existing customers, to keep them shopping with us, he says.
Customers, Rajagopalan says, also expect to be recognised wherever they are be it online, offline, whichever geographic location they are in and expect to be served quickly and accurately. The attitude is, I am not going to wait for you to give me some excuses, if you recognise me fine, if you don't recognise me, I know somebody who will recognise me, he says.
