Currys boosts in-store and online customer experience

Currys has gone live with a more connected service across all of its channels that, the technology retailer says, will “provide personalised journeys and customer insights on a massive scale”.

Over the last 16 months, Currys has embarked on a mission to transform into a “best in class, digital first omnichannel retailer”.

This has seen it re-platform and upgrade its website, enhance its ShopLive service (a video commerce channel), as well as deliver a new Colleague Hub in all of its UK stores.

The latter enables its frontline staff to gain visibility of the customer from the moment they step into a store.

This includes the online customer history, a log of all their interactions, and any items they’ve put in their online shopping cart, all displayed in real-time.

It also acts as a one stop shop for store colleagues with fast access to knowledge articles, and tasks so they can support each customer.

Currys CIO, Andy Gamble, says: “Our people are our magic ingredient and in a business such as ours it’s hard for the experience to exceed that of our colleagues.”

“From today, our frontline people are armed with a richness of information not previously seen, as we put amazing tech in their hands and enable them to have more meaningful interactions with our customers.”

Over the last 16 months, the retailer’s Omnichannel Connected Customer programme has tackled hundreds of legacy systems and hit over 600 milestones, while also navigating the Covid-19 pandemic.

This has involved a team of over 500 colleagues, in five countries as well as external partners. It also re-platformed four sites without any drop in performance.

Gamble continues: “We exist to help everyone enjoy amazing technology. Central to that vision, is helping our customers discover and choose the tech they want and need, which is why we’re transforming to become a world class, digital first, retailer.”

“The hardest yards of our transformation are behind us as we launch a major step change in our omnichannel offer giving customers an unrivalled omnichannel experience, augmented by technology, and enabled by people.”

“Today we have a radically easier and richer journey live both online and in-store, so that our customers can seamlessly shop wherever and whenever they choose.”

“We have aligned thousands of customer journeys and are getting to know our customers better through data. Our new integrated and connected ecosystem brings together the online and in-store journeys in a way that allows us to have meaningful customer conversations.”

He concludes: “Looking ahead, we will give our customers fewer reasons to shop elsewhere as we talk to them more often, providing a deeper, more personalised level of customer service that will drive more frequent purchases and loyalty, and grow the uptake of our wider Services offer.”

“To date, our omnichannel strategy has led to happier colleagues, happier customers, who are more likely to return, and a financially stronger business. Currys is now leading the way in omnichannel technology retail in the UK.”