5 Ways Digital Signage Enhances the Customer Experience

In this day and age, brands are looking for unique ways to engage with customers. In an overcrowded ad world, how can brands stand out and make consumers pay attention to their message? By going visual.

Today’s retailers are turning towards digital signage to help them reconnect with customers. This technology allows retailers to advertise more efficiently, adding benefits along the way. If retailers want to successfully engage with customers through digital signage, here are a few things they need to keep in mind: 

1. Raise brand awareness. With digital signage placed strategically throughout stores, it's easier for retailers to display new products as well as promote discounts and offer loyalty programs — i.e., things which consumers are attracted to. This provides helpful and relevant information to consumers who may be in a rush or don't want to scan the whole store for one item. Eye-catching visuals combined with targeted messaging and personalized service are the perfect formula, making consumers feel like the brand is interested in them, not as customers alone, but as individuals too. 

2. Make it memorable. Retailers looking to attract customers — especially millennials, who prefer immediate access — need to be creative with how they advertise. First thing to remember: make it memorable. Whether it’s a scent, touchscreen or anything that engages their senses, consumers need something to remember you by.

Digital signage is one way to advertise without the customer even knowing they're being advertised to. Quick Response (QR) codes can be easily integrated to help customers locate a specific item(s) or invite them to get more information on their phones or at home. Once a customer signs up, they can receive offers and updates, bringing the customer experience full circle. 

3. Know your audience. Throughout the day, any given retailer has a wide range of demographics come through its stores. People who shop in the morning aren't the same as those who shop in the afternoon or at night, so the messaging needs to reflect the diversity of your audience.

According to a shopping preference study, 90 percent of shoppers surveyed preferred to buy at brick-and-mortar stores. As a result, digital signage can create in-store sales at different hours of the day as well as seasonally, promoting on sale items via screens. These specialized sales create a sense of entitlement in the customer, making them feel like this sale is special for them. This, in turn, makes them more likely to return. 

4. Include recommendations and expert advice. Digital signage can be used to display social media recommendations, in real time, and show reviews directly from the brand’s website. Other displays can provide expert advice about how to use a product or direct customers to use their mobile device to start a live chat with a sales representative who could provide answers to questions. Once a customer engages with your brand, there's a bigger chance they’ll remain loyal to it. They’ll remember how this particular experience made them feel and even pass along a recommendation to family and friends.

5. Use as an employee training tool. Digital signage allows retailers to display company announcements, training videos, updates, events and all company-related information in the break room, in real time and across multiple stores, too. As a result, employees don’t have to attend after-hour meetings, which cuts down on overtime, and the messaging remains constant across the entire organization.

One of the most important components to a successful store is a knowledgeable and well-trained staff — one that's engaging, outgoing and can make the shopping experience unforgettable. Remember, an excellent customer experience starts with great customer service!

Kerwin Everson is vice president, supply chain solutions for RMG, a provider of intelligent digital signage software.