Consumers' Path To Purchase Widens, Changing And Enhancing Floor Associates' Impact On Buying Decisions

By John Orr,  senior vice president of retail strategy and execution, Ceridian HCM

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This is the second in a series of four articles that focus on the changing buying experience in retail and its impacts on floor associates’ relationship with customers and, thus, retail organizations’ sales. Compared to their behavior in the past, consumers today take an asymmetrical, much wider path to purchase. This shift followed advances in technology, and much of their decision-making now takes place online. Yet floor associates, who also benefit from advances in technology, remain a key variable in customers’ purchasing behavior. Retailers that recognize and take action related to these advances improve the experience of employees and customers alike—and increase profits.

What path do consumers take today to make a purchase in retail? For years, it was a predictable path, and marketers developed a model to explain and describe it. They also built entire marketing ecosystems tailored to the model. Simultaneously, another model emerged to reflect the symbiotic relationship tying profitability to employee satisfaction and customer loyalty. Then, along came the Internet, and consumers’ behavior evolved. Their path to purchase and related behavior changed. In response, so did retailers’. Marketers have since developed a new model to explain and describe this new path. But the relationship in retail bonding profitability with employee and customer satisfaction has only grown stronger. Smart organizations understand all this and do everything they can to maximize their relationships, large and small, with their employees: Efforts to change their technology for human capital management can help a good deal. Plus, a variety of benefits cascade all the way down to relationships with employees and customers alike, to yield better profits.

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