According to a study of Millennials and Gen Zers by strategic retail advisory firm HRC Retail Advisory (HRC), 83% of consumers use their smartphone while shopping in-store. Preferring to be left alone by sales associates, these shoppers use their phones to do everything from compare costs to read online reviews before making a purchase decision.
However, when it comes to checkout, 72% of respondents surveyed saying they would prefer to check-out from a sales associate. Fifty-one percent said that they use their smartphones while shopping to share pictures of products in an effort to solicit opinions from family and friends. Forty-seven percent use smartphones to read product reviews and 46% using mobile devices to research product information.
Source: chainstoreage.com
Lightbulb Moment: Here are some of the boundaries that lay between the customer and operator. Trust and respect go a long way to making the sale if those boundaries remain unbreached. Do you have the online presence that your customers are expecting? Those customers that seem to be ignoring your staff, who seem wrapped up in their phone…may actually be communicating with your company that very moment. Don’t discount the phone-centric, they are speaking to you too … you just have to learn to listen.