Customer experience: optimizing waiting time in stores

Customer experience is a powerful differentiator. In the retail world, with equivalent products and prices, customers will always prefer a brand that can make its point of sale more attractive and efficient. Digital signage, with its impacting, contextualized and always up-to-date content, plays an important role in the attractiveness of the brand, the perceived waiting time and the lived experience.

Waiting time: a sticking point to fight

Busy time seems to be shorter than unoccupied time. This is what the researcher David Maister explains in his book” The Psychology of Waiting Lines ”. The more retailers are able to divert customer attention and minimize boredom during the downtime of a purchase, the more time seems to pass quickly. Screens placed strategically at the points that are likely to cause the most friction can subtly deceive customer expectations, inform or entertain them, while strengthening the brand image of retail networks.

In the case of supermarkets, the two most critical moments are waiting at the cash register and looking for information in case staff are unavailable. For agencies or the sale of services (catering, tertiary, etc.), customers must wait before being taken care of or if the professional is late. These are all key moments that require a reduction in perceived waiting times.

Several strategies can be applied to minimize the perceived waiting time:

• Inform the customer on the reasons for the wait and the time he must devote to it with dynamic signage adapted to traffic flows.
• Turning this moment into useful time : presenting informative content on screens, generating better knowledge of the offer, generating brand engagement, etc.
• Add a fun side with interactive games, promotional operations, contests, etc.
  

Customer cases: how Axa, Boulanger and PPG improved the customer experience in stores

Best practices are only useful when they are shared. Here are three concrete examples to draw inspiration from.

Boulanger : improve the customer experience at the checkout

For the home equipment specialist, digital signage plays a key role in capturing the attention of customers waiting at the cash registers. On screens, Boulanger promotes its products and offers, and broadcasts content from its partner brands and suppliers., while being anchored in local reality to maximize the impact of its communications, in particular with messages adapted to its catchment area.

In-store studies have shown that the customer experience is improved at the time of checkout. The actual waiting time was measured and then compared with that experienced by customers. The latter was 2-4 minutes less for customers with access to a digital signage screen, contributing to a better checkout experience.

Axa : interactive screens to keep customers waiting

The agency was looking for a solution to welcome its customers, inform them about news and offers, and reduce their perception of waiting time. With the installation of an interactive digital signage solution and the provision of a tablet, the visitor has access to a library of videos that he can choose to broadcast on the screen. This allows customers to consult predefined content to look for information about the offer that is most relevant to them, resulting in a 53% higher level of message retention.

PPG Industries : Animate waiting times at Comptoir Seigneurie Gauthier stores

In the 200 paint and varnish stores for individuals and professionals, customers must wait while their order is being prepared. To limit the perceived waiting time, the brand has imagined a convivial space, where customers and sellers can chat over a coffee, all with connected screens that relay the brand's communications. (news, commercial events, promotion of offers and services, etc.). The moments of waiting have thus become moments of sharing and promoting the brand.

When waiting time cannot be avoided, waiting times must be controlled. To do this, you can create moments of information and complicity in order to occupy the minds of customers and limit frustration, as we saw in the previous use cases. Thanks to a fleet of screens that can be controlled remotely, you facilitate the management of your communication in points of sale and optimize the customer experience in all stores. Enough to combine return on investment and customer experience.

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