Liquorland

Leading the digital evolution during lockdown

More so than ever, consumers are looking for more diversity and better ranges available in brick-and-mortar

stores, as well as other good reasons to keep coming back. Liquorland saw the opportunity to up the ante

with their franchises across the country and evolve to meet their customers’ changing and varied needs.

How better to lead the market in liquor retail?

Customer loyalty data also provides great insights that can be used to influence business decisions and

steer more clients your way. For many businesses, though, traditional loyalty data (such as how often a

customer comes in to visit) often misses one crucial component: the voice of the customer!

The question, then, is this: Do happy customers come back more often and spend more? National café

franchise Columbus Coffee was on a mission to find out

The opportunity: Leading in liquor retail

Before bringing Customer Radar on board to provide real-time feedback, Liquorland relied on anecdotes and reports from various research organisations like Shopper Tracker and sales numbers from Nielsen. However, feedback once a year was only giving them a glimpse at their performance. Angela Hurst, Liquorland’s Brand & Customer Experience Manager, says “We were struggling to get insights into each store, and when these did come through, they were often only coming via a small section of our audience.”

Combining transactional data with customer satisfaction data is where the magic happens. It’s showing us that happy customers come back more often and spend more – and creating an incredible, customer-led attitude for the true café experience.”

Angela Hurst,

Brand & Customer Experience Manager, Liquorland

What they needed was something that could catch feedback in real time, and Customer Radar was ready to help.

The process: Dipping a toe before diving all-in

Liquorland trialled Customer Radar across a dozen stores to understand the programme and see how it might work. It was soon delivering great results. Liquorland quickly came to appreciate insights not only about the work they needed to do, but also feedback that celebrated the great work they were already doing.

“The team got a real buzz out of being able to see what customers were saying about them. That made a big difference. And it really helped us to understand the types of conversations we could be having with customers – how we could be engaging with customers in the future.”

“We knew it was something we needed to roll out to all 130 stores.”

Making it easy for customers to give feedback was key to getting a great response. From there, to further encourage customers to give feedback, Liquorland put a few incentives in place. They started with a monthly $200 Prezzy Card draw for customers – which saw feedback flooding in – and organising morning tea for the store that showed the best level of engagement, in terms of responding to customers, each month.

Making sure the tool we chose was simple to use, and that the stores had access to an easy feedback dashboard, has been important from day one. “Our franchisees have a million things to do each day. The Customer Radar dashboard is very simple to use which helps stores’ engagement. Each store’s Customer Radar champion gets a ping if there’s feedback, so they can get back in touch with customers in a timely fashion.”

The impact: Engaged employees and more satisfied customers

One thing that’s been valuable at not just a store level, but also a national level, is the visibility and

transparency of the feedback.

“Sharing success stories from each store has proven to be a real advantage in making the most of the customer experience,” says Angela.

We’re sharing the types of feedback we’ve had from various stores across the country: Here are our

winners; here’s how such-and-such store engaged the most; here are some awesome customers; here is how we’ve turned around a less than happy customer. We’re keeping customer experience at the top of our minds and it’s making a national difference.

Leading product and placement

Providing the best experience extends to product ranges too. Responding to a trend seen across the country, Liquorland have identified the opportunity to cater to New Zealand’s booming craft beer market and are making great strides in improving their beer ranges. This is being met with great feedback.

Sometimes communicating changes makes a big difference to the customer experience too. A customer left a comment saying that it’d be great if the Snell’s Beach branch stocked more local wines. “We responded to the customer with a number of local brands that we had in stock,” says Angela, “but the customer didn’t realise. So, we grouped these local wines together and made some clear signage. We had previously had the range, but we weren’t doing the best job of executing this in store display. Now it’s one of the most popular parts of the store as consumers love supporting local. It’s been a positive change with great upside.”

Angela says there’s not been “one big ‘hallelujah’ moment” when it comes to feedback, especially since Liquorland are consistently getting high NPS scores in the 80s. “It’s all about doing a good job and making small refinements,” she says. “Customers just appreciate you taking the time to get back to them, even after 10 out of 10 feedback. If they’ve taken the time out of their day to do this, we owe it to them to listen, reciprocate, and let them know we’re looking forward to seeing them again. This helps create a genuine interaction which can be few and far between these days.

“Stores using the tool well are really seeing the benefits. You just need to embrace it and get into it. It’s quite rewarding”

What’s next? Click and Collect

Lockdown restrictions in 2020 meant businesses had to adapt quickly, digitizing and overhauling brick and mortar to open their doors as early and as safely as possible. Within days, Liquorland had to shut their doors and operate through Click & Collect only across the country.

The team was eager to make the process as smooth as possible for already anxious store owners, staff and customers as we transitioned to an online model only. We immediately started asking customers for feedback on their experiences, and it helped refine our internal processes to make transactions as smooth as possible in those interesting times.

From the end of March to early June, nearly 9,000 pieces of feedback were gathered - a 1123% increase on the same time period last year. This helped refine all aspects of the process, from first click to the moment the customer collected their order. It also opened up an important channel to communicate with customers, resolve issues and retain business when brand reliability was at its most crucial point. Despite the challenges of an unknown lockdown environment, Liquorland managed to improve an already excellent NPS - with thousands of customers applauding Liquorlands’ commitment to safety, swift order processing, and excellent customer service in challenging times.