In this post, we want to share our knowledge to guide retailers, banks, payment & loyalty platforms through the Post-Covid recovery phase by highlighting the strategic metrics that need to be closely followed.

Our guidance is based on years of service in banking, payment, loyalty and retail industries, helping companies delight their customers and earn their loyalty through personalized & timely mobile engagements.

Our technology and consultancy allow our clients to understand their customers behavior in the physical world, bridge their online & offline worlds and implement scalable processes to improve key performance metrics such as frequency, retention and purchase size.

Post-Covid recovery will be challenging from many aspects. For the consumers to get back to the mindset of pre-Covid times, there are crucial medical precautions to be taken in malls and stores. To make up for the financial losses during lockdown periods, the retailers and payment platforms will be in great competition to win their precious time spent in malls and wallet share. The customers will be engaged via all channels with offers inviting them to stores, aiming to increase basket size and also increase frequency.

In this post we will provide a set of strategic metrics for retailers & payment platforms and a framework of what aspects of their strategy and operations they need to update in order to align themselves with the new normal. (You can find our previous blog post The New Normal After Covid-19 here.)

Understanding customers shopping experience and measuring the right metrics will be more important than ever. It is expected that the customers will show different patterns in many metrics, such as visit count, duration, etc. compared to the pre-Covid times.

Following are the shopping experience metrics and questions for which they can shed light on:

• Leaving Home Percentage: Compared to pre-Covid, how does the leaving home percentages differ
• Mall vs. High-Street Preference: Do customers prefer to visit malls or high-streets when going shopping How does this differ from pre-Covid
• Mall Visit Count: How many times do the customers visit a certain mall How fast is a certain mall recovering
• Mall Visit Duration: How much time do the customers spend in each visit to a certain mall How does this differ from before
• Mall Visit Time Intervals: What are the most preferred time intervals for mall visits How does this differ from pre-Covid
• Total Time Spent: How much time do the customers spend for shopping (Visit Count * Visit Duration) How does this metric differ from before
• Store-Visit vs. Window-Shopping Duration Analysis: How is the Visit Duration breakdown between Window-Shopping Duration and In-Store Duration How many customers loiter in the mall walking around the corridors and how many actually come to shop and spend more time in the stores
• Store Category Visit Count: How many times do the customers visit a certain category of stores Which categories recover faster than others What is the split between essential & non-essential shopping
• Store Category Visit Duration: How much time do the customers spend in each visit to a certain category of stores Which categories are distinguishing from others
• Store Visit Count Per Category: How many stores are visited in a particular category How does this differ from before
• Store Visit Count: How many times do the customers visit a certain store How does the store foot traffic differ from pre-Covid metrics
• Store Visit Duration: How much time is spent in a certain store Did customers begin to spend more or less time in the store Which stores do the customers spend more time in

As a retailer or a payment platform, knowing your customers and understanding their behavioral changes will have more critical impacts on your business results post-Covid. The customers are expected to be bombarded with mass or personalized campaigns from all competitors, therefore the players that analyze the customer behavior & trends with the right metrics and act proactively will be stepping ahead of competition.

As an executive have you asked yourself if the following strategies need to be updated in the post-Covid world for your business

Retailers:

• Store Opening Timing Strategy
• Mobile Engagement Strategy
• Messaging/Content Strategy
• Store Opening Location Strategy
• Engagement Timing Optimization
• Data-Driven Sales Projection Updates
• COVID Behaviour Based Personalization
• Category-Benchmark Store Performance
• Operation & Staffing Hour Optimization
• Store Performance Metrics Realignment
• Omnichannel Store Visitor Retargeting

Banks & Payment Platforms:

• Online vs. Offline Offer Strategy
• Mobile Engagement Strategy
• Messaging/Content Strategy
• Engagement Timing Optimization
• Partnership Strategy Reassessment
• Category Recovery Pace Analytics
• Purchase Propensity Based Targeting
• Optimum Timing for Brand Based Offers
• Omnichannel Store Visitor Retargeting
• Update CRM for New Customer Preferences