Kantar IMRB Retail – At the cutting edge of retail research

In the fiercely competitive business of retail, both retailers and marketers are forever striving for an advantage to get ahead of the pack. Retailers want to leverage every last square inch of retail space to improve the customer experience, which in turn drives sales, while marketers jostle with competition for the ideal retail presence, one that will not only draw the customer’s attention, but also put the product ‘front and centre’ in the consumer’s mind space.

Both these goals require a deep understanding of consumer behaviour in and around physical retail environments. It is important, therefore, to understand the dynamics between the various elements of the retail environment that drive shopper behaviour. Kantar IMRB Retail offers a unique suite of products and services that aids client decision-making across different points of the consumer retail experience.

We believe that every point of sale offers countless research opportunities, because this is where active shoppers are at that critical juncture of deciding on ‘what’ they should buy while the store environment is constantly feeding them stimulus on ‘why’ they should buy.

Currently being used by clients across a variety of industries and sectors, we believe that our offerings give you a much better insight into what makes for the ideal shopper experience, as opposed to traditional research methodologies, which depend heavily on in-home research or ‘forced exposure tests’ in simulated environments supplemented with some in-store research.

Our core services:

• RetailScaping - a retail network expansion tool
• Two Ahead Shopper Science - studying the science and art of shopping
• Scores - an evaluation of store performances
• CEx - an index for measuring customer experience across every P2P touch point
• Retail Compliance Tracker - real time auditing system of multiple delivery aspects at the PoS
• The Digital Shopper - understanding the role and dynamics of online shopping today

CExp is an index for the holistic evaluation of the customer’s experiences with a retailer, across touchpoints. This index can be tracked at regular intervals and provides data on the following metrics:

• Did the experience meet their expectations?
• How pleasurable was the interaction with the provider?
• Would they have positive things to say about the provider to their friends, family etc.?

Shopper Satisfaction and Commitment

• Customer Relationship Assessment : For evaluating service delivery in terms of processes, merchandise, price perceptions, billing, hygiene, display, navigation, share of spends etc. as well as intention to visit again and Net Promoter Score
• Mystery Audits : To assess process delivery and shop assistants’ sales pitch and ability to up-sell vis-a-vis preset standards as well as in the competitive context

CExp diagnostics measures the experience at each touch point in the journey and delivery on the perceived brand promise. Improvements made here could contribute to the overall happiness of the customer and increase the likelihood of favourable word-of-mouth among the customer’s peer groups.
Changes made on the basis CExp inputs can help strengthen brand preference, improve customer loyalty and create brand advocates, as well as increase revenues from existing and new customers while reducing costs by reducing churn.