Agility Metrics Blog

Retailers: Google says you will continue to be showroomed and customers won’t trust your sales staff this holiday season

Agility Metrics — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 15:43:17 +0000

Google just released their 2012 Holiday Shopping Intentions Study and it contains two very worrisome pieces of information for retailers:

1) Showrooming will increase to unprecedented levels this holiday season

A stunning 49% of customers plan to buy a product online after first visiting a retail store. Here is how the showroomers’ purchasing paths will play out:

> 32% of customers will research a product online first, then visit a store to view the product, then return online to purchase it.

> 17% of customers will visit a store first, then go online to purchase the product they saw in-store.

So, showrooming has two faces, both of which will rob retailers of huge amounts of revenue this holiday season.

2) Customers will barely trust retailers’ sales staff as a useful source of information

According to Google’s study, only 32% of holiday shoppers will trust retail sales associates as a very useful source of information. Compare that to the 80% of holiday shoppers who will trust the internet as a very useful source of information. Sales associates rank right in between dead-tree industry staples like magazines and newspapers in terms of usefulness.

Bottom line: This is sobering news for retailers who are thinking of pursuing a “business as usual” customer experience strategy this holiday season. Memo to them: your world is about to get radically disrupted. Get ready for some angry glares from your shareholders, who will wonder why your holiday sales are slumping while online merchants continue to race ahead with growth rates of 17% per year.

Les Rôtisseries St-Hubert Chooses Agility Metrics for Comprehensive Guest Experience Management Program

Agility Metrics — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 15:28:32 +0000

Agility Metrics announced today that it has been chosen by Les Rôtisseries St-Hubert, one of Quebec’s most respected restaurant chains, to implement a comprehensive Guest Experience Management program in restaurants across Eastern Canada. This program will enable St-Hubert to capture guest feedback, measure guest satisfaction, and continue to deliver unique guest experiences, which have been synonymous with the brand for more than 60 years.

The Guest Experience Management program will cover every possible encounter a guest can have with Les Rôtisseries St-Hubert, including the casual dining experience, take-out counter, delivery service, drive-through, as well as the St-Hubert Express and Le St-Hub Resto-Bar. Guests will provide real-time feedback about their St-Hubert experiences using multiple data collection methods, including cutting edge mobile surveys that function smoothly on iPhones, Blackberries, or Android smartphones.

Click here to read the full press release.

Agility Metrics is looking to make 2 new hires!

Agility Metrics — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:26:33 +0000

Agility Metrics is looking to make 2 new hires as it accelerates the growth of its Customer Experience Management platform.

Senior Sales Executive

Agility Metrics’ is currently seeking an experienced Senior Sales Executive to drive revenues in the retail and food service sectors. The Senior Sales Executive is expected to lead all sales efforts within his/her assigned territory, including prospect identification, lead generation, sales calls/meetings, managing the sales cycle from qualification to proposal development and from contract negotiation through deal closure. He/she will also be responsible for developing effective sales strategies in targeted market segments as well as tactical execution.

Client Services Manager

Agility Metrics’ is currently seeking a Client Services Manager to join the Client Services team in our Montreal headquarters. Reporting to the Vice President of Client Solutions and Services, the Client Services Manager will be responsible for the successful implementation and maintenance of marketing research and continuous feedback programs which consists of but not limited to survey methodology, questionnaire design, program documentation, training and delivering business insights to our clients.

If you think you’ve got what it takes to be a part of our team, send us your CV and cover letter to hr@agilitymetrics.com. We’re waiting to hear from you!

Read this White Paper to Avoid the 7 Sins of Customer Feedback Programs

Agility Metrics — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:05:16 +0000

We’re excited to announce the publication of a brand new white paper, which we authored in conjunction with Retail TouchPoints, one of the most respected online sources for news and content focused on the retail industry. This ultra-timely white paper reveals the 7 Deadly Sins that frequently plague customer feedback programs, including: treating customer feedback as an in-house science experiment; ignoring the growth of social and mobile; and failing to measure what matters the most to customers. The white paper also highlights best practices for collecting customer feedback in a multi-unit, multi-channel retail setting, and provides retailers with a blueprint for measuring and managing the customer experience the right way.

We invite you to download a free copy of the exciting new white paper by visiting RetailTouchPoints.com or by clicking here.

What Retail Customer Feedback Means for the Showrooming Generation

Agility Metrics — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 18:38:43 +0000

I’ll let you in on a little secret. Despite their outward animosity to one another, a broad and powerful consensus has emerged over the past decade among retail customer feedback vendors. The vendors have spoken and the decision is unanimous: when it comes to architecting in-store shopping experiences, the purchaser is the only person whose voice matters. This is why almost every vendor-managed retail customer feedback or Customer Experience Management program relies on the receipt-based invitation as its sole mechanism for inviting participation in post-experience surveys. On the surface, it all sounds a little narrow-minded. Why restrict yourself so much? Even during peak shopping seasons, more than 30% of shoppers leave stores empty-handed. And technology is only increasing the importance of the non-buyer experience.

The buyer-only approach is fundamentally at odds with the behavior of the new generation of shoppers. We are in an era where 1 in 2 shoppers check out products in-store before buying online and where 51% of shoppers believe that physical stores are destined to be used primarily as showrooms. The ubiquitous mobile phones play their collective part: 60% of smartphone-toting shoppers will bail on an in-store purchase if, during their shopping sessions, they discover an online discount of 5% or more. And here’s some even scarier news for brick-and-mortar retailers: using smartphones to augment the shopping experience is no longer an activity confined to a narrow cadre of technologically-advanced hipsters. Instead, this activity is reaching a mainstream tipping point, as 44% of shoppers admit to using their smartphones to influence their in-store purchasing decisions.

Whether customers are more cost-conscious, want greater product selection, or just want to shirk the sales tax, it all adds up the same conclusion. From now on, the store is not just a revenue center; it’s also a showroom, a hang-out place, or a brand destination. Retailers can fight inevitability or they can embrace the new reality and profit off of it. Some already have. Take the Apple Store. Apple Stores are not only about driving sales, transactions, or conversions. They’re also temples to the brand, meeting places where brand-customer relationships are strengthened, and product playgrounds meant to inspire future online or offline purchases. Even Walmart is getting in on the action. Conscious that its store are being used as showrooms for Walmart.com purchases, Walmart has experimented with an “endless aisle” attribution strategy, where local stores are credited for online transactions made by nearby shoppers.

Bottom line: while the store experience might never disappear, we can safely discard the notion that the only important shopping experience is a transactional one. The showrooming experience that sets up an online conversion will become just as critical, as retailers fight to ensure conversions ultimately occur on their own “.com” instead of Amazon.com!

It’s time for feedback-fuelled retailers to think beyond the purchasing experience, and tap into the voices of showroomers, browsers, and all the other non-buyer segments.

New case study: Auto Value / Bumper to Bumper

Agility Metrics — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 18:15:29 +0000

Hot off the presses today is a brand new case study that explores Auto Value and Bumper to Bumper’s experience using Agility Metrics’ Customer Experience Management platform.

Auto Value and Bumper to Bumper certified service centers offer quality repair and maintenance services at over 2,900 facilities across North America. Auto Value and Bumper to Bumper are famous for their customer service advantage, which is why they partnered with Agility Metrics to implement a comprehensive customer service measurement program that gives shop operators an edge in maintaining incredible customer service.

A little over one year into the partnership with Agility Metrics, Auto Value and Bumper to Bumper are already seeing great results. Customer satisfaction is up, complaints are down, and shop operators are even more focused than ever on delivering great car care experiences.

Head over to the Resources section of our website to check out the Auto Value and Bumper to Bumper case study, as well as other case studies about our automotive aftermarket customers.

Grocery Outlet and Agility Metrics Profiled on RetailTouchPoints.com

Agility Metrics — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:37:59 +0000

Head on over to RetailTouchPoints.com for an amazing feature article about Grocery Outlet’s implementation of the Agility Metrics Customer Experience Management solution, and the benefits that GO has derived from the partnership.

Agility Metrics has been working with Grocery Outlet since late 2010. As a result of the partnership with Agility Metrics, Grocery Outlet has been able to:

increase NPS scores from 77% to 80%
maintain a higher level of customer service
react more efficiently to store-level issues
improve employee scheduling
get smarter about its marketing spend
drive positive word-of-mouth to create new business
gain an edge over other retailers who don’t have similar programs in place

Make sure to read the whole article; it’s a very exciting read, and it speaks to the value that Agility Metrics is delivering for each and every one of its clients!

We’re looking for a highly-motivated software engineer

Agility Metrics — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 14:52:25 +0000

Agility Metrics is looking for an Intermediate Software Engineer who is a proactive, self-motivated leader with strong communication skills as well as possess a solid development background. This individual must be passionate about developing social media and mobile applications that perform like client/server software with all the graphical appeal of web sites.

The ideal person will focus extensively on mobile and tablet (iPhone, Android, and Blackberry) application development. The ideal person will take a leadership role in conjunction with the VP of Development and others to architect and develop Agility Metrics’ new mobile CIM platform. This is a great opportunity for an entrepreneurial individual seeking to contribute to the success of our products and the future of Agility Metrics.

Some of the key responsibility include:

> Designing an Agile development plan to deliver new features to our customers

> Designing databases for new features for our growing customer base

> Integrating off-the-shelf components and API’s to deliver new functionality and performance

> Consulting and advising other members of the technical team

If you feel you have what it takes to help us in this role, please visit the full job posting for instructions on how to apply.

Agility Metrics Gets Profiled On NextMTL

Agility Metrics — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 16:20:08 +0000

Agility Metrics was just profiled on NextMTL, which is the leading source for all the news and opinion on startups and technology in Montreal. NextMTL’s vision and driving purpose is to be a key hub of news and opinion related to Montreal technology, with a focus on startups. NextMTL aims to reach three key audiences: grassroots non-community members (people that can be recruited into the startup community), existing startup community members, and non-community members from outside Montreal (e.g. investors, acquirers, talent) as well as inside Montreal (e.g. executives at large organizations).

Here’s where you can access NextMtl’s profile of Agility Metrics: http://nextmontreal.com/measuring-offline-experiences-in-real-time/

We thank NextMTL for their generous coverage!

Missed our webinar? Don’t worry, we’ve archived it for you!

Agility Metrics — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 15:48:34 +0000

If you weren’t able to attend our automotive aftermarket webinar last week, or if you did attend and you would like to watch it once again, it’s now available for viewing on our website. In this webinar, we reveal how great customer experiences drive 80% of sales decisions in the automotive aftermarket, and we also outline some tips you can use to start measuring and managing the customer experience more effectively.

Follow this link to watch webinar now: http://www.agilitymetrics.com/webinars/may23/

We hope you enjoy the webinar as much as our live attendees did. If you have any questions about the webinar or about our solutions for the automotive aftermarket, don’t hesitate to get in touch!