Market research firm Forrester shared a case study to show how India-based retailer Big Bazaar improved customer experience in its 218 stores across 118 cities in the country.
In 2013 and 2014, executives from Big Bazaar and its parent company Future Group observed several shifts in their customers’ behaviors, which prompted the organization to pay closer attention to their needs.
The shift in the customer behaviour was mainly due to rapid urbanisation and change in the Indian lifestyle.
According to Future Group’s CEO Kishore Biyani, the retailer has been able to scale up its fashion business with improved supply chain and adopting technology. Fashion business contributes about 45 per cent of the Group’s revenue while food and household item segments cover the rest.
As customers’ profiles and lifestyles changed, they often indicated to employees that there were existing issues Big Bazaar needed to address to meet their evolving needs.
Therefore, it has taken several customer experience initiatives to grow business and to help its CX pros learn from experience.
In connection with that, the firm offered more convenient in-store browsing, faster checkout, and a greater variety of payment options for its customers. The firm also provided wheelchairs, baby strollers, drinking water and free home delivery to improve customer convenience. It also launched discount programmes like ‘Wednesday Bazaar’ to attract customers.
In order to improve checkout speed, the firm initiated a program called Gati (Hindi for “speed”). It also provides priority checkout tokens to loyalty program members, senior citizens, and people with special needs.
To make payment hassle-free and provide a wider choice of payment options, Big Bazaar undertook a variety of payment-related initiatives. The company introduced Future Pay, its own digital wallet, and tied it in with other wallets such as MobiKwik.
Future Pay allows Big Bazaar customers to bundle their loyalty cards and benefits across Future Group companies. Big Bazaar is also one of the first Indian retailers to install ATMs within its stores.
The efforts taken by the retailer reflected in Forrester’s India CX Index, which rose the most of any Indian brand from 2015 to 2016.
Most significantly, the retailer improved its easeof-shopping score by 25 percent over the prior year. As Big Bazaar’s CX Index score increased, vocal customer endorsements swiftly followed and repeat walk-ins more than doubled. The retailer’s changes to its product mix paid off, as its average ticket size increased significantly.
