Customer Experience: Walgreens and the Mobile Customer Experience
Posted by Kim Vaughan
Walgreens Enhances the Customer Experience Through Mobile Promotion.
Walgreens has just provided a real-world example of how Smart Phones are Transforming the Shopping Experience. Walgreens is running one of the largest mobile-only promotions ever at 7,700 of their stores.
Walgreens locations nationwide are equipped to read the special coupon 2D codes off of the smartphone LCD display.
“A re-release of the Walgreens app for iOS, BlackBerry and Android included a new coupons section that will issue up to three new deals each week exclusively for customers using the mobile apps. Rich Lesperance, head of digital marketing and merging media, Walgreens, says the program is the largest deployment of in-store mobile coupon scanning of which he is aware.”
This mobile offering enriches the customer experience, relieving them of hassles of clipping, organizing and maintaining a paper coupon system.
Read more here about Walgreens promotion, and if you missed my blog post on how Smart Phones Transform Shopping Experience, check it out!
Customer Experience motivates shoppers—a personal example.
Last week was the first time ever I participated in the Black Friday rush. Yes, I woke up at 4:30am so I could be one of the first to arrive at a retailer selling Christmas trees at a discount. I am not one who has enjoyed success in couponing or scoring good deals, so I’ve not had much motivation to rise early with the deal-getting experts who make a career out of promotions like these. But I will have to say that my customer experience was so gratifying that I honestly already plan to get in the mix of Black Friday in 2012.
What made it so much fun, you ask? I was greeted with an enthusiastic, energetic team of employees who appeared genuinely happy to be of service before the crack of dawn. Swarms of workers made sure they accommodated me at every turn, even making me a cup of Starbucks coffee and sending me off with a fresh donut.
The excitement in the air at the first 2 shops I visited was evident. Even fellow shoppers stopped to lend a hand and had a friendly demeanor, unlike the shoulder-to-shoulder pandemonium I created in my head that must have taken place. I couldn’t believe it when I entered in one of the shops, greeted by a warm Chick-Fil-A biscuit…how about a yummy free breakfast to enhance the customer experience?
We all know that nailing the customer experience (as those retailers successfully did for me last week) is sure to reap benefits for retailers...but reminders are always beneficial. Read here about how Disney’s brand success is largely linked to their provision of an excellent customer experience.
