Consumers are constantly demanding experiences that will cater to their needs, and the old-fashioned independent store will no longer be able to match customer needs and expectations. Firstly, Telecom retail stores are becoming better connected, on top of the strategy where they no longer care about the highest number of sales but are now shifting their focus to consumer needs and customer goals. Depending on the clientele some retail stores could focus on being experimental showplaces, or kiosks where clients can only collect or drop off devices; Some stores will have to offer both services and more. Telecoms stores will have to reimagine every aspect of how they do business.
A catchment area is the area around a store that provides the majority of customers, and under the old system a store’s location could mean life or death for that individual store. As services become more customer experience-focused and digitized, communication services providers must reconsider their store’s catchment to generally maximize instead of maximizing an individual store’s sales. Communication services providers should choose from multiple retail formats that are built on their locale’s profile and their customer needs. For example, if a customer goes to a store and tries out the product but they buy online that doesn’t help the store individually, but it does benefit series of stores. As many as one in four people will use a store as a test site, while upwards of 60% will stop by a store purely for advice on a product. In the case of test site stores, their job is essentially enhancing the store’s overall brand.
The telecom industry isn’t going anywhere, they will survive by continuing to change their models and moving seamlessly between physical stores and their online digital presence.
