Transcript
Adam (00:00):
I think people expect stores not to just be a building with shelves to collect product from and browse product. I think it needs to be an experience that is helpful to the customer journey, and I think that's one of the reasons why retail stores have a unique opportunity over online only stores because they have this space in which they can further support their customers and also build connections with their customers. So I think using the most of that retail space is becoming an expectation of our customers.
Mike (00:38):
Welcome back to retail oriented retail fans. My name is Mike Fowler. I am the VP of retail sales here at the Sales Factory, and you're actually tuning into part two of a great conversation we're having with Adam Castleton of Startle. Now, if you don't know about startle or music theory and how that might influence consumer behavior in a retail space, you may want to go back to part one and listen to that episode first or watch that episode depending on what you're doing, and then tune in here or go ahead and tune into this and maybe go back and check it out. Either way, there's some really good content and really good ideas on how to influence consumers in store and in their shopping journey. So we're really excited about this conversation. We hope you get a lot out of it. We've talked about technology quite a bit and things that are coming down the pipeline and how to use those. What do you see coming down the pipeline in the future in terms of what are customers expecting in their experience with retailers and with brands? What do you see coming that we should be thinking about?
Adam (01:41):
I think customers post pandemic especially, are expecting more. I think they're less forgiving, and I think that's across the board when it comes to customer experience, price, service, everything. I think flexibility is a key one. So being able to order online, collect and store those kind of click and collect delivery options, return options, I think they just need to be a complete open book designed for the customer for the best experience possible. I think people expect stores not to just be a shelf, a building with shelves to collect product from and browse product. I think it needs to have an experience that is helpful to the customer journey, and I think that's one of the reasons why retail stores have a unique opportunity over online only stores because they have this space in which they can further support their customers and also build connections with their customers. So I think using the most of that retail space is becoming an expectation of our customers.
Mike (02:39):
It's evolved quite a bit since the pandemic and kind of thinking about how to creatively use that space. I think so many retailers are maybe taking that for granted right now and not maximizing what they could get from a customer experience with their brick and mortar stores. So I think that's a great word for brick and mortar retailers out there to be thinking about, okay, well how do I curate this experience and make it even better? How do I elevate the peaks in an experience for a consumer? So we're talking about personalizing and kind of curating for a consumer and the expectation that that is there. However, there's kind of another side of that. I know personally as a consumer, I'm always worried about how much do they know about me, how much of my data do these companies have? How are they using it? I don't know if I'm alone in that. I think it's a growing sentiment amongst consumers of worrying about just how much of their information is out there, how do we walk that line and is there a line in your mind that's out there that we need to be cautious of crossing?
Adam (03:51):
So I completely agree with you. I am increasingly concerned about my data being on various platforms. I don't give it away as freely as I used to do, and I think that's here to stay. I think the world is changing, especially post, do you remember Facebook, Cambridge, Analytica era? I think that was the beginning of a snowball that has created this environment, and I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. I think we were being traded like the product to get free things. I think people are aware that if something's free, they're probably trading some data for that. There are some studies, I saw one the other day where over 80% of consumers are concerned about their use of personal data, and I think that's a danger actually that retailers face even to the point of would you like an ere receipt? Like what's an ere receipt?
(04:38):
Well, that's just a way to get my email address and I think people are more aware and sensitive to that kind of stuff. However, I think the question that everybody will ask themselves is, well, is that data caption necessary for this transaction and am I getting any value for it? An ACY is not really valuable, but joining some kind of membership of something that I actually want to be a member of is it's necessary. You might not need to know my height, weight, and date of birth, but yes, you can know my name and email address and keep some transactional data. When it comes to an in-store experience though, I'd kind of argue that you can't curate that to an individual. You can curate apps and websites to individuals, although quite often that's pretty bad. Even Amazon, you could say leads in this area, for example, suddenly I need to buy a hundred shelves.
(05:28):
That's just not the case. So personalization in store is even harder than that and Amazon haven't even mastered it. Online personalization to a context is more valuable. I still consider that personalization. It doesn't require any data capture, it just needs to make some educated assumptions around time of day, location. You could do all of that without knowing too much about people. So again, back to the hardware store, pre 9:00 AM likely tradespeople after 9:00 AM likely d i y, for example, a coffee shop, pre 9:00 AM people getting coffees before work. After that people may be with their family. So you can make these assumptions and tailor it experience for a context which remember is kind of more valuable anyway than tailoring for an individual experience. And all of that is without individual information needing to be known and then personalizing to a brand as itself. I think having a distinctive feel within a store and atmosphere in general, obviously that translates to playlists as well, but that's really important.
(06:26):
It needs to be distinctive. It needs to feel like the brand that you're in when you're in a store, you can see the logo when you walk in, but when you're in front of a shelf, does it feel like you're in the store that you are in? And actually by curating an atmosphere for a brand, you can make it feel like that experience. Otherwise it's quite forgettable. That was a long answer to quite a simple question, but ultimately, yeah, personalized information, be very careful. People make their own judgments. I think that's going to become increasingly sensitive as a topic and then ultimately that needed at the cost of doing something for context, which is more valuable. Anyway,
Mike (07:03):
You said a simple question. I'm not sure it is a simple question. It's maybe a straightforward question, but not simple. There's a lot of layers to that. So thanks for walking us through your vision on it. I do think it's really interesting for retailers, for manufacturers, anyone that is catering to consumers to think about, am I getting value for money on this data that I'm trying to glean from consumers? Am I actually going to be able to use it or is it just, again, it's kind of technology for technology's sake, data for data's sake. We've got a lot of clients that have come across our radars that have got so much data and they don't use it for anything. So is it wise to capture all that data or is there more benefit in understanding the context, building the relationship, and gleaning loyalty and trust those ways? So really interesting ways to think about it and things to keep in mind as these brands and manufacturers and retailers are dealing with consumers in the future. Right,
Adam (08:04):
Yeah, and I also think that the main reason that a physical store would be collecting data is for some kind of loyalty scheme, and there's so many bad loyalty schemes out there that don't have the effect that people want or they did have. There's something that age, so we have this kind of, we always talk about not being able to buy loyalty, and if you put loyalty through some kind of program, so a coffee shop where you get the sixth cup free for example, it becomes an entitlement actually. So the customers expect that they're going to get that when they get the free cup. They don't think, oh, thank you coffee shop for my free cup of coffee. They think, well, I paid for that. I bought five more the last time I came in. Same applies to over here in the uk. Supermarkets absolutely, well, Tesco in particular have been doing this for the year for, they have club card points when you spend in store, you can trade them for days out, this kind of stuff, but they reduced the number of points.
(09:03):
So instead of three points per hence per pound, you got two points or something like that. And there was uproar. Absolutely. That scheme had bought no loyalty because people expected this. They thought they were having something taken away from them. In contrast to that actually, and drawing again from the peak end rule, we have a coffee shop chain called Prett over here, and I think they have some in the US too, where you'll randomly get given a free cup of coffee, you'll place your order and say On the house, that happened to me once, and I go there a lot and I talk about that one free cup of coffee, way more than I do the narrow one where I collect stumps and get the sip cup free because I wasn't expecting it. I don't feel like I earned it. I thought they were just being nice. There was a bit of a cube. Even if you are collecting data quite legitimately, it's worth thinking, well actually, is there any element of surprise here or are we just creating this sense of entitlement? Because if you are, you have to sort of break yourself away from that quite gently. And the easiest way to do that is actually just change the context of what you're doing and offer some stuff that people didn't expect, and people will talk about that for years to come.
Mike (10:06):
Yeah, the surprise and delight element is wonderful. It goes back to the concept in what you're trying to market. It's got to work in the real world. What you started with, today's conversation, talking about going in the store and experiencing it, understanding what it's like from a consumer. There's so much value in that to understand how is this actually going to play out in the real world? Are we going to create expectation? Can we surprise and delight? Can we create a better mood? There is so much to understanding in the real world what it's like for a consumer, and then you can influence and help guide those journeys in such a more effective way. Really great conversation. Adam, thank you so much for being on the show. I never let anybody go without some hot seat questions. So what we're going to do here is I'm going to just ask you some rapid fire questions and you just spouted off the first thing that pops to the top of your head since we've been talking a lot about music and since your technology company deals with music quite a lot, what was your first concert?
Adam (11:12):
Oh no. That are the worst question you could have asked. And I have to answer truthfully because so many people I work with know the answer.
Mike (11:21):
They'll see this, everybody can answer. They're watching. Everyone's watching would be
Adam (11:24):
Great. So my first ever concert I was very young, was a girl band called Bewitched, an Irish pop group. My only comeback is, well, they were good singers. I'm not sure if they made it across to the US or not, but
Mike (11:38):
We had a television program called Bewitched, but I don't think I've heard of the pop singers. I'll have to go look it up after this. Maybe that'll be my,
Adam (11:45):
They had a recent comeback.
Mike (11:47):
Really?
Adam (11:48):
Yeah, just the one,
Mike (11:49):
Did you make it back to the reunion tour or was that just the onetime first concert?
Adam (11:54):
I think no, quite, I didn't get to tour. I think it was released on YouTube.
Mike (11:59):
What is your go-to music to shop by? Anything that kind of helps you elevate your mood when you're in a retail environment?
Adam (12:06):
So this is really tricky to answer with a particular type of music. It depends on what I'm doing, where I'm shopping. One thing that I know that I wouldn't want is generic radio, please everybody chart music. Lots of people resort to that being put on, and it's just kind of, yeah, I could listen to that in the car on the way here, listening to some generic radio station. So I think that's a trap that people fall into. I think also is low quality, royalty free music is, I'd rather listen to silence and some of that stuff just to save some money. So I think familiar music, but something that I don't know, it's nice to have a bit of discovery, but if I'm in a bar, I might want just some sort of repetitive beats to get me in the mood with a bit of bass. What I don't want is generic. I want it to be distinctive to that brand. It's nice if it's familiar commercial music people, like what's familiar to them. So it depends.
Mike (13:01):
I love the familiarity because people are comfortable. It creates a sense of comfort. But I also like what you said about discovery because I've found that in myself. We've got an app that my wife and I use called Shazam which basically just identifies the song that you're listening to. So I can't tell you how many times we've been in a store or at a movie or wherever we are, and my wife's gotten her phone out as quickly as she can so she doesn't miss it because that's always the rush to get your Shazam app started and try to identify the song so she can go back and listen to it or in her car. She loves it. So that element of discovery is really cool when you do experience it in the real world. What is your favorite, just kind of behavioral science factoid? What's something that you throw out often in meetings or something that you always go back to
Adam (13:50):
Keeping on the music theme? I think something that's underutilized is the effective base on how people feel. And this is something that we use quite a lot. The higher base levels within music makes people feel more dominant, more powerful and in control. And that's a useful thing to know. And we use this across a range of industries in a coffee shop that turns to a cocktail bar. There's a chain in the UK that late night coffee bars, we actually changed the music but also changed their base level in the evening automatically off the back of our platform. The thinking there is that you're more likely to go up to the bar and order a cocktail that you might not have done otherwise. The other thing is, if you're selling a high-end product such as jewelry or car showrooms, selling vehicles, we curate quite different playlists for those types of customers.
(14:40):
But actually we always make sure they're being played through really good quality speakers. It doesn't have to be, we're not talking nightclub based here, but you need to hear the depth to the music. A couple of reasons. One, it creates the confidence to buy a car. It's a big considered purchase. And the second reason is you need to show quality at every level. So the quality of sound will impact the way people feel about the product. So a lot of music is unfortunately impacted by poor quality speakers. You can play the best quality music, best curated music, and then it gets played through something tinny. You're actually losing a lot of demonstrable effect and commercial impact. So make the most of that investment because it really is powerful.
Mike (15:21):
I love that. And this, I will have to say, Adam, this, I've been in marketing studying consumer behavior for a lot of years now. I won't age myself by saying how many, but I've learned more about how consumers interact with space and experience and music today than I've learned in a really long time. So I've really enjoyed the conversation. Adam, thank you so much for being on the episode. We really enjoyed the conversation and really appreciate you being here. Hopefully we'll have a chance to reconnect and maybe do this again one day.
Adam (15:50):
Thank you so much. It's been great.
Mike (15:52):
Thanks for tuning in Retail fans. That was a great conversation with Adam Castleton from Startle. We hope you learn some interesting things about music theory, how experience can influence decisions and influence a buyer's journey in the retail space as well as online. If there was something that really stuck out to you, drop it in the comment section. We'd love to hear what you found interesting. If there's any topics or people that you want to have on in the future on retail oriented, we'd love to hear about that too. So drop that in the comments, or you can just shoot me an email directly at mike.Fowler@salesfactory.com. And don't forget to subscribe and click the little bell icon in the corner so you always know when there's new episodes of retail oriented, we want to make sure that you're up to date on everything that we're learning so that you can learn right alongside us. And don't forget, when you're thinking about the retail channel, it's always about selling in and selling through.
