From high staff turnover and inconsistent service to growing online support demands and the push to drive more in-store foot traffic, retailers are navigating challenges that directly affect sales and loyalty. This article outlines how clienteling technology and AI tools offer practical solutions.
Challenge: Lack customer guidance opportunities online
Clienteling technology can help remove the barrier between the expert advice customers can get in-store and online. When it comes to shopping for a specific style, a technology, or beauty products, the opportunity to talk to a real expert can help customers make informed decisions, reducing the likelihood of returns and, conversely, helping retailers build trust. By giving shoppers more opportunities to easily access information about your products and talk to an expert, you also gain more opportunities to learn about your customers’ preferences, thereby creating a virtuous cycle of growth. Salesfloor allows online customers to engage with retailers through chats, appointment scheduling, and more via the Connect™ widget.
Challenge: Bringing more foot traffic in-store
We often view online and in-store experiences as separate, disconnected channels. However, in the customer journey, whether the first interaction occurs online or in-store, the digital touchpoint presents an opportunity to drive more foot traffic to physical locations. The most efficient way to do this is to add easily accessible appointment features to a retailer’s website and to enable geo-location of stores in a single streamlined process. Another way clienteling software can help increase foot traffic is by sending ultra-personalized offers to specific clients, inviting them to come in-store for a special event or sale. By leveraging information about their shopping habits and past communications in the same place, retailers can send more relevant offers and connect with customers without coming across as spammy or irrelevant.
Challenge: High turnover amongst employees
Employee attrition is a significant challenge in the retail industry, making it more important than ever for companies to invest in scalable solutions that keep employees engaged. Engaged and stable employees are more likely to build strong customer relationships and communicate effectively with shoppers.
Clienteling can help reduce turnover by giving employees more opportunities to interact with customers and rewarding them for successful engagements. With the right clienteling software, sales associates can be credited for sales that occur both in-store and online after engaging with customers via SMS, chat, video calls, appointments, shared customer boards, or their personal storefronts. This transparency makes it easier for commission-based employees to stay motivated and achieve their sales targets.
Part-time employees, in particular, often struggle with motivation when faced with ambitious sales goals and limited in-store hours. Tools like personal storefronts and customer boards empower them to earn commissions even when they are not physically in-store, without taking more time outside their limited work hours. This can help increase their engagement and improve retention within the company.
Challenge: Training employees to deliver consistent level of service and messaging
The main challenge when hiring new sales representatives is about making sure they know their products well and that they deliver as quickly as possible the same level of customer service as a confirmed employee. There are three tools in Salesfloor’s app that can easily help them achieve this:
Automated tasking feature
Salesfloor allows managers to assign task lists to floor representatives, helping them stay proactive and focused on key responsibilities. Tasks might include responding to customer inquiries or notifying a client about the arrival of a specific item. This structured approach not only ensures efficiency but also helps instill the right habits in new employees, setting them up for success.
The tasking tool also now includes an automation feature, designed to help sales associates know which customers they should contact next. Example: for a refill or an accessory related to a previous item they bought. This approach ensures that every sale associate knows what channel is preferred by the customer, when is the best time for them to communicate with shoppers and what their product preferences are.
Messaging templates and AI messaging assistant feature
Retailers can leverage templates, or pre-made AI prompts to ensure new employees know what terms to use when referring to specific products or services, as well as be compliant with the company’s tone. The company can set different copies and AI prompts that their sales associates can grab and implement in their communications to customers. Or, they can ask the AI messaging assistant to directly generate communications for them.
“This tool has been a game-changer for us because it lets our teams deliver personalized recommendations without losing that human touch, even as we scale. Since our coaches work collaboratively, it’s important that everyone can maintain a consistent voice and approach with our customers.
What matters most to us is building those relationships in a way that feels cohesive across the entire team. We’ve found that when customers come back for a second purchase, they tend to become loyal, so making each person feel genuinely cared for is absolutely central to what we do.“
– James Inlow, Vice President of North America Field Operations at GNC
According to recent McKinsey studies, “AI is no longer just about experimentation; it’s about translating new capabilities into tangible value, whether that’s in customer care, marketing, networks, or capital planning.” We have entered an era where AI is becoming an imperative to deliver the expected level of personalization the new consumer expects.
A connected catalog (Storefronts and Customer boards)
Storefronts integrated with the retailer’s inventory and product catalog enable employees to quickly navigate the store’s offerings and check product availability in real time. This helps them become more familiar with the catalog and provides accurate information to customers efficiently.
How clienteling software addresses retail’s biggest challenges
Retailers today face several obstacles, from providing expert online customer guidance to driving in-store foot traffic, reducing employee turnover, and ensuring consistent service levels. The right clienteling software offers practical solutions by bridging the online-offline gap with personalized customer interactions, encouraging store visits through appointment booking and targeted offers, improving employee engagement by rewarding interactions beyond the sales floor, and standardizing service quality with structured workflows, messaging templates, and digital product catalogs.
By addressing these challenges with clienteling software, retailers can enhance customer experiences, improve retention, and create a more seamless shopping journey.
If you are interested to see how Salesfloor can help you get a competitive edge by implementing Clienteling solutions to solve these common challenges, don’t hesitate to book a free 1-1 session with our in-house experts.
