Situation: Retail sales had been falling for six straight months, the longest consecutive stretch of monthly declines in at least four decades. In this dismal retail environment, a major U.S. shoe chain approached Halverson Group to identify actionable opportunities for increasing stagnant customer conversion numbers, while maintaining the company’s current differentiation strategy.
Approach: Knowing we were presented with a wicked problem, our research team moved to address the challenge by developing a bulletproof conversion-centric research plan—one with a scope and scale substantial enough to deliver the deep, impactful insights expected by our client. To tackle the problem, we used a combination of four research methodologies, three quantitative and one qualitative, in ten stores across four regions. Our associates began by conducting participant and ethnographic studies of client customers in each of their key markets. Among other interesting themes, we identified issues customers were facing locating shoes stocked on store shelves. Ethnographic insights were then tested, substantiated and refined using video/audio analytics and surveys. With a technologically sophisticated video/audio analytics system installed in each of the stores, our researchers were able to capture and code over 20,000 customer experiences and perform and in-depth analysis of over 3,000 customer-employee dialogue exchanges. In addition to other trends, data mined from video and audio analytics uncovered an opportunity for employees play a more active role in converting customers without coming off as pushy or overselling products.
Outcome: Rather than provide the retail client with a set of rigorously supported high-opportunity areas for improving conversion, our team prototyped a set of solutions to help the client understand how the problem might be solved. For example, by comparing the conversion rate of high performing sales associates to that other associates, the team found that better sales scripts would improve sales. This insight was then followed up with a series of situation-based protocols and scripts designed for immediate testing in the field. As a result of this approach, all of the nine strategies for boosting conversion were accepted at the CEO level and solutions are currently in test under Halverson Group direction. Moreover, within a year of completing the study, same store sales were up 15.5% and the conversion rate was up for the first time in nearly a decade.
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