Discovering ‘WOW’ — A Study of Great Retail Shopping Experiences in North America (PDF; 1.5 MB)
Source: Wharton School (U Penn), Verde, Retail Council of Canada
From related story (Knowledge@Wharton):

Wharton’s Jay H. Baker Retailing Initiative teamed with Verde and the Retail Council of Canada to discover how retailers can create an extraordinary experience for shoppers. In an online survey, 1,006 shoppers in the United States and Canada were asked: “Can you think of a shopping experience that you had in the past six months or so that was especially great, in that the experience created delight and surprise for you in any way?”

A report based on the research, titled “Discovering ‘WOW’ — A Study of Great Retail Shopping Experiences in North America,”points to five major areas that contribute to a great shopping experience:

• Engagement: being polite, genuinely caring and interested in helping, acknowledging and listening.
• Executional excellence: patiently explaining and advising, checking stock, helping to find products, having product knowledge and providing unexpected product quality.
• Brand Experience: exciting store design and atmosphere, consistently great product quality, making customers feel they’re special and that they always get a deal.
• Expediting: being sensitive to customers’ time on long check-out lines, being proactive in helping speed the shopping process.
• Problem Recovery: helping resolve and compensate for problems, upgrading quality and ensuring complete satisfaction.

In all, respondents mentioned 28 elements of a great experience, such as salespeople who “immediately acknowledged you” or “could easily explain a product to you” or “seemed genuine.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 9:25 am and is filed under Business and economics, Consumer issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.