How To Curate Your Customer Experience

Today’s markets demand a lot from a business and the face of a business is constantly required to change. In today’s modern retail world, customer experience is vital to growth as a business. While retail sales have always been customer focused, it’s now required for business owners to set the landscape and tone for their customers so they have a relatively guided tour through the products that you want to showcase. The focus is no longer about how much product you can get on one shelf in one category or product type. Instead, the modern consumer requires business owners to curate a customer experience for them. Smart business owners recognize that a curated customer experience allows them to sell the products they want to sell at price points that the customer will accept, provided the proper values or ideas are represented in your creation.

What Does “Curate” Mean In This Context?

To curate is simply to “look after and preserve” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Most people think museum when they hear the term “curate” and there is a reason why. Museum curators often have some advanced degree that bestows upon them the authority to make decisions about an exhibit. As the exhibit is established, curators go through the pieces of art, history or even high fashion to determine a story, a message or a silently communicated emotion that observers are supposed to feel. In that regard, many businesses now employ all kinds of curators to determine exactly what message their customer wants to or needs to receive. As this trend has become more apparent in the cosmopolitan centers across the world, more and more consumers expect a curated customer experience. Business owners and leaders just need to have the wherewithal to notice this desire and appeal to the mass that desire that sort of treatment.

What Are The Benefits Of A Curated Customer Experience?

The psychology behind the move to curation is pretty easy to understand. For one, rather than customers falling into decision paralysis, where you are more likely to lose them, consumers are presented with curated collections that speak to their specific style or needs. Anyone from high fashion chain store “boutiques” chasing the boho fashionistas such as Urban Outfitters to home improvement stores like Home Depot chasing the “everyman” can adopt this style of customer experience. It’s about tapping into the general feelings or needs of the customer, which you have to do anyway to attract them initially. A curated customer experience just goes a bit deeper. For the indecisive shopper, you can literally become the person that tells them how to dress or what they need to groom their face and people love that. Companies like Stitch Fix or Trunk Club are examples of companies that make their living that way. It’s not just limited to clothing either! Companies like Blue Apron cater to the needs of indecisive eaters and Birchbox provides cosmetics for the indecisive consumer. Creative businesses can figure out what their customers want and literally tell them what to purchase with the right customer experience.

How To Implement A Curated Customer Experience

Cultivating a customer experience takes vision and the willingness to change, as well as a finger on the pulse of what’s important to your consumer. You can’t afford to be obtuse here because you may be missing a massive part of your market segment that doesn’t even know that they need your products yet. Focus on your products as elements of a story. Whose story are you trying to tell with your products? Don’t forget that many of your customers now expect their experience to apply to all the ways they choose to consume products. This takes an omnichannel approach, but you can’t just copy and paste your desktop customer experience into a physical location or vice versa. Find an essence that expresses the image that you want to cultivate and make that your foundational piece.

While almost all business owners are capable of moving their business toward a more curated customer experience, it does take a certain mindset to do it properly. If you aren’t practiced in this mindset that lets you know how your customers feel and what they need, partner with HJR Global’s team and they can help you cultivate that perfect customer experience. Click this link to start learning the building blocks for this skill now.