Retailers risk losing customers if internal productivity issues are not resolved

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed retail sales in the UK fell by 1.5 per cent in December 2017 compared with November, which underlines the difficulties that retailers are facing in terms of persuading consumers to spend money.

Retail technology group Conversity said that addressing this “squeeze in consumer spending” is not about improving a company’s external image, but also tackling the “internal productivity issues that continue to dog UK businesses”.

The group said that retail leaders should realise that revamping internal working practices and culture to enable staff to do their jobs more efficiently is an “essential part of improving levels of customer engagement”, encouraging consumers to come back to shopping.

Dave Stark, CEO at Conversity, said that consumers are faced with “overwhelming choice”, and that if people working in retail businesses are unable to help consumers to browse and shop it will hamper their ability to convert and retain customers .

He added: “We all know that good marketing and promoting a positive brand image are extremely powerful tools in initiating the customer engagement process.

“However, efforts to increase sales and foster long-term loyalty with customers will fall flat if staff are not empowered to serve and support customers as efficiently as possible across sales channels.”