Digitizing The Store Sales Associate Experience

For all the benefits of shopping online in terms of convenience and speed, one of the tradeoffs is that it is essentially a solitary experience. Online shoppers are more or less on their own when it comes to selecting what they want based wholly on their own knowledge.

And for many products, commodities and staples, that isn’t much of a problem. And even for more complex consumer goods there are always reviews, product guides and walk-through videos out there to fill knowledge gaps as necessary. But, as Hero chat app Co-Founder Adam Levene said, it still felt like there was something missing from that digital experience — the help and guidance of an expert sales associate.

Not only lacking, he noted in an interview, but also kind of excluded. The digital experience, he said, was designed without ever really considering how or even if to tie in elements of the physical experience — leaving it sort of siloed.

“We built all these mobile commerce things, but retailers still had all these physical stores,” Levene told NRF. “Their associates were disconnected from the growth of digital communications.”

And that, he found, was a significant lack because sales staff are generally highly knowledgeable about the products and enthusiastic about the brand. If retailers are looking to convert customers, associates are a valuable tool in store — and could be leveraged as an effective asset online as well. Customers online have questions just like customers in a store, and instead of sending them off site on a research project to find those answers, it is to the store’s benefit to keep them on their site and in contact with an expert who can answer those questions.

Hero is designed, according to Levene, to create that contact point with a retail chat app focused on helping a shopper while they are on the path to a purchase. Most retail chat apps focus on contact after the purchase is made — for example, answering questions about when an item will arrive.

“When a consumer is browsing on a catalog page, that’s where Hero rises,” Levene explained. “It invites the customer to shop with an expert in-store, through chat as well as with pictures and live video streaming.”

What the customer gets, he said, is a more immersive shopping experience — and a more informative one. The power of multichannel shopping experiences, according to Levene, is both a better experience for the customer and also a better use of sale associates and their expertise. Instead of tapping them as a resource for a single spot in a chain, he said, that person can use the smart phone they are already holding “and be connected to millions of shoppers.”

And that access point, he said, has real dividends when it comes to converting consumers. According to Hero’s in-house data, a customer who works with a sales associate on average spends 60 percent more per transaction than one who does not.

That’s partly because sales associates are very good at matching a person to the right object — and making sure they get the exact version of it they want. But they are also, Levene noted, a discovery tool that makes the customer likely to buy more than just what they came for. Not to mention, he added, more likely to come back.

“They’re also guiding them to additional products to complete the look for apparel or for their other buying needs,” he said. “Now they go to the website, and they’re assisted by knowledgeable associates. The associates are giving that great experience to the customer and building brand loyalty.”

The shopping experience gets a lot of attention as 2019 is fading into 2020 — though that discussion often takes place in the context of a physical store and how to make the experience good enough that it “beats” the ease and speed of shopping online. But for the team at Hero, the main focus of their app is building a better and more consistent shopping experience whenever and wherever the consumer is conducting commerce, online or off.

“They have these great shopping moments, and it really drives the revenue,” he said. “It’s about how to fuse the experience online and offline.”