Customer Service

Americans want helpful employees, stocked shelves, and some tech when shopping: survey

65% of Americans would likely stop shopping at a store where they have a negative shopping experience, according to a Harris Poll/Retail Brew survey.
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· 3 min read

Retail news that keeps industry pros in the know

Retail Brew delivers the latest retail industry news and insights surrounding marketing, DTC, and e-commerce to keep leaders and decision-makers up to date.

“The customer is always right.”

It’s an age-old expression that we’re not necessarily unpacking here, but retailers should take note: A positive customer experience is critical for business. It’s a complex component of operating a retail store, but it turns out that shoppers gravitate toward stores with helpful employees, fully stocked shelves, loyalty programs, and tech—to an extent.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans (65%) would likely stop shopping at a store where they had a negative shopping experience, according to a Harris Poll/Retail Brew survey of 2,102 US adults. Conversely, 82% of those surveyed said they’re likely to return where they had a positive experience.

Help me out: More than a third of those surveyed (36%) said they were likely to stop shopping at a store where items they wanted to purchase were out of stock.

  • The most important factors in creating a positive shopping experience, according to survey respondents, are in-stock items (70%), the ease and speed of checkout (64% and 61%, respectively), helpful employees (62%), having multiple options for items (49%) and store layout (48%).
  • When it comes to employees, the data shows they’re largely taking care of business: Almost three-quarters (73%) report that retail workers helped enhance their shopping experience.

Loyalty, loyalty, loyalty: More than four in five respondents (82%) report belonging to at least one loyalty program, with a majority (56%) belonging to between one and four, 20% between five and nine, 6% to 10 or more, and 18% to none.

  • Interestingly, 25% of Zoomers report not belonging to a loyalty program, the highest percentage among all cohorts.

Everybody's email inbox is overflowing, but if retailers have something to offer, then it might be worth it. Almost two-thirds (65%) of Americans approved of retailers contacting them for deals, promotions, and sales. For those that belong to at least one retail loyalty program, 75% report using the discounts, promos, and coupons that are provided often, with over a quarter (28%) saying they use them “very often.”

Tech crunch:  While only around a quarter of Americans report using chatbots when shopping online (27%), frictionless checkout technology (27%), or biometric payments (25%) often, those figures jump to closer to half for Gen Z (49%, 48%, and 41%, respectively) and millennials (46%, 45%, and 45%).

  • However, two-thirds (67%) of Americans—and three-quarters of older shoppers—said they were concerned about “retailers collecting and using their data to enhance shopping experiences.”
Retail news that keeps industry pros in the know

Retail Brew delivers the latest retail industry news and insights surrounding marketing, DTC, and e-commerce to keep leaders and decision-makers up to date.