ICXSummit: How to bring 'social proof' into your brick-and-mortar locations

The customer experience no longer starts at the front door, nor does it start in the parking lot or even at the register of a store or restaurant, Razorfish’s Jason Goldberg said Monday morning during his keynote at the Interactive Customer Experience Summit in Chicago.

“We don’t ‘go’ shopping anymore,” he said. “We are always shopping.”  

That's because consumers are digitally emerged at all times, said Golldberg, noting that a company’s website is now its official “front door” and that online sites like Amazon are successful because they are constantly encouraging consumers to purchase. For example, they are able to prove to customers what they are selling will meet their needs. Product reviews, user-generated content and Q and A forums give customers info that is needed and wanted in order to feel confident about a purchase. Goldberg calls this “social proof.”

“The brand name used to be the shortcut, but you can’t win for being well known,” said Goldberg, who admitted brand names or the companies with the most awareness doesn’t resonate as well as they once did. “Because of Google, it’s all about how good your product actually is.”

That’s because consumers can easily find out facts—not just opinions— about products through simple Google searches, which is why so many consumer enjoy shopping online. Consumers like to buy what their peers buy, and online shopping makes that easy to do, said Goldberg.

Bringing “social proof” to brick-and-mortar locations

That's why brick-and-mortar retailers and restaurants must find ways to bring “social proof” to their stores, and Goldberg believes technology is the way to do it.

“There’s a huge opportunity to use technology to deliver it,” he said.

A few retailers are nailing it already. Nordstrom Rack, for example, uses digital screens in stores to stream a live Instagram feed showing the photos consumers have posted of recent purchases.

Another store installed a screen that displayed its products featured on Wanelo, a site similar to Pinterest, that has easier shopping and purchase capabilities. Another store went more old school and hung little tags over its products that “were-most pinned on Pinterest.”

“The question to ask is, ‘How do we bring the right technology to the front of the store?" said Goldberg.

Avoid retailer ADD

Goldberg said it's easy to get caught up in technology for the sake of technology, which he referred to as "retailers with ADD" who often chase the latest or shiniest new toy. It happens when someone in the boardroom throws out a term like “beacon” or “app” and the rest of the staff scrambles to “check the box.”

Retailers should start with a problem and look for a technology to solve it, not the other way around, said Goldberg, who said he saw that scenario when Best Buy implemented a new loyalty app that actually competed with its own initial loyalty app. The goal was to check the technology box, not solve a problem.

“That’s never a good business decision,” Goldberg said.