Look at Sex to Curb Showrooming

Results from the “2012 Kellogg Shopper Index,” based at Northwestern University, indicate that your attention to consumer gender can help curb showrooming.
     Men who have achieved advanced education levels and earn higher incomes like the money saved by showrooming. They’ll come into your bricks-and-mortar (B&M) store, drain the brains of you and your staff for advice and training, and then leave your store to make the purchase online. Or maybe not even leave your store, but rather use a mobile phone to scan the UPC code from a package on your store’s shelves and place the online order while standing right there.
     The men’s preferences are not as sensitive to the quality of B&M customer service as are the preferences of women shoppers. The Kellogg finding is that, although female shoppers are also attracted by the price advantages of showrooming, they prefer the high touch atmosphere of B&M. It’s when they receive poor customer service that they abandon loyalty to B&M.
     Of the survey panel participants who reported having engaged in showrooming, 40% said they didn’t intend to do so when entering the store, but decided to do it after experiencing inadequate customer service and support. About 59% of all 1,900 survey panel participants said they’d received poor or average service.
     The implication for retailers is that you can achieve notable leverage in decreasing showrooming by determining how your female shoppers define customer service and support, and then delivering in full measure.
     How those women define customer service might differ from how you or your staff define it. Research at University of New South Wales indicates that retail staff have one or more of three sorts of definitions:

• Giving customers what they ask for in a minimum of time and with a maximum of courtesy. 
• Solving a problem with or for the customer so that a bond between the customer and the store is formed or strengthened, making it more likely the customer will want to return soon and often to the store. 
• Selling products and services. 

     The first two definitions sound fine, although the means to accomplish each could vary between the two. The third confuses ends with means. Employees who define customer service as meeting sales quotas might have low trust in store management. Or it could be that store management gives no more than lip service to delivering what shoppers consider to be good customer service.

Click below for more: 
Showboat a Bit with Showrooming Shoppers 
Define Customer Service for Your People