4 Ways To Relieve Customer Stress This Holiday Season (And Strengthen Service!)
By Brian Ward, Experian Partner Solutions
Tis the holiday season — and consumers certainly showed their excitement over the Thanksgiving shopping weekend. According to reports, total sales between Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year are just shy of last year’s total. However, while consumers spent about $315 on average over the holiday — and plan to spend a total of $846 on gifts, according to Experian’s 2018 Holiday Shopping Survey — they are concerned about their finances. Our data registered consumer unease in a number of areas with a third of those surveyed saying they feel anxious about holiday shopping in one way or another.
For example, people are concerned about their finances and budget, with one of the top three worries finding enough money to buy gifts. Consumers also said they felt stressed about adding to their debt levels and sticking to their holiday budgets. The economic downturn from the past may still be on consumers’ minds, and while they are enjoying the current positive economic climate they don’t want to overextend themselves if a recession were to hit again in the near future.
Another big concern is the fear they don’t have enough credit to buy gifts, with Millennial shoppers worrying the most about how their credit scores will be affected by their Yuletide purchases. But more than three-quarters of all shoppers said they won’t do anything to monitor how their holiday shopping affects their credit scores. However, Millennials are 88 percent more likely than the average consumer to open a new credit card during the holidays, mostly to score the discounts that come with a store-branded line of credit or card.
And with the dramatic rise in online shopping, consumers are at risk of identity theft. Cyber Monday sales this year surged to new highs, according to Adobe Analytics, with online spending at a record $7.9 billion, up more than 19 percent from last year. Transactions on mobile devices rose 55.6 percent on Cyber Monday, accounting for $2.2 billion in sales. According to the Experian survey, a full one-quarter of consumers who have been victimized by ID theft said their data was stolen while holiday shopping. Yet despite the popularity of online shopping and worries about identity theft, fewer than 60 percent of buyers said that they’re vigilant about security when making purchases on the Web.
Given consumers holiday angst, there are timely steps that retailers can take to create and enhance a solid relationship with customers. Here are some tips that your customers will appreciate during the rush of the holidays — and are likely to pay off in increased consumer loyalty in the New Year.
Know what your customers want. It seems obvious, but too many companies skip this step. Be sure you take advantage of the holiday volume by harnessing the feedback from customer service and harvesting data for key customer insights.
Share customer data across your organization. Make sure you can recognize moments of opportunity in the customer journey, especially at this hectic time of year when above-and-beyond service and convenience will stand out.
Offer customers the option of ID protection services. ID protection helps differentiate your company, engage your customers and build revenue. Consumers want businesses to protect them — and are willing to pay for it. Nearly 80 percent of consumers surveyed indicated that they want banks, card issuers and other businesses they frequent to step up their efforts to protect consumers — both online and in stores — during the holiday shopping season.
Inform and educate your customers. According to the study, the top goals of consumers for 2019 are to save more, improve their credit scores, pay off debt and create an effective personal budget. More than a third of consumers say they want to start monitoring their credit reports for accuracy. Providing credit education tools can help your customers understand how the extra holiday expenses will affect their household finances and credit score, and plan for the future. Customers who feel better about their budgets and those with improved credit scores will be inclined to shop more and possibly step up their buying at your store or website.
There are various factors that are making consumers anxious this holiday season. Take a few simple steps to assuage your customers’ fears, especially given the challenging and competitive retail environment, and you could see a bright outlook for customer engagement, loyalty and sales in 2019.
About The Author
Brian Ward is Vice President of Marketing and Strategy for Experian Partner Solutions, which provides whitelabel tools and services, which companies can leverage to acquire, engage and retain customers.