Retail Feedback Group Finds The Personal Touch Matters At The Supermarket

LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y.- The Retail Feedback Group (RFG), a leader in providing actionable stakeholder feedback, released the 2014 U.S. Supermarket Experience Study. The research, now in its seventh year, found that supermarkets continue to generate high satisfaction among their shoppers, scoring an average of 4.46 on a five-point scale, where five is highest.

Importance of the Personal Touch at the Supermarket

Creating engagement between shoppers and their supermarket is key to trip satisfaction, store shopping enjoyment and willingness to recommend.

• Checkout: Fully 65 percent of shoppers acknowledge cashiers have a positive impact on their trip experience — underscoring the importance of cashier-assisted lanes in high trip satisfaction.
• In-Aisle Engagement: Pleasant interactions with store associates, including product recommendations, create an immediate payoff in terms of a larger basket size, as well as a longer-term loyalty building advantage given higher-than-average recommendation and satisfaction scores.
• Active Problem Solving: Offering assistance in finding items, resolving out-of-stocks or addressing other problems during the trip helps avoid lost sales and dissatisfied shoppers. Supermarkets show room for improvement as only half of shoppers indicated an issue encountered was resolved during the trip.
• Leveraging Technology: Social media serves as an important gateway to building and strengthening loyal connections leading up to, between, and following grocery trips. Shoppers connected with their primary stores through social media are more likely to recommend the store and provide high satisfaction ratings.

Doug Madenberg, RFG Principal commented, “The findings of our study show that a people-first culture is an essential element in winning the grocery war — especially when combining in-store engagement with technology to bring the personal touch back to retail.”

Local Products and Farmers Markets
Driven by a desire for freshness and to support the local economy, shoppers are expressing interest in locally-sourced items, which they define as grown within a certain mile radius (46 percent) or in their state (41 percent). Shoppers are most interested in locally-grown vegetables, followed by fruit, eggs, meat and poultry, and milk.

Closely tied in to the local movement, farmers markets are becoming a competitive force with 78 percent of shoppers buying food items there at least on occasion. Top reasons again center on freshness and supporting the local economy.

Brian Numainville, RFG Principal, noted, “More than eight in 10 shoppers cite very high interest in purchasing locally-grown produce yet shoppers do not give supermarkets high satisfaction marks on the variety of locally-sourced foods. While fresh has been a supermarket stronghold, the ever-growing number of farmers markets, and their strength in locally-grown seasonal items, may become a potential disrupter and should serve as a red flag for supermarkets to protect their point of differentiation, and ultimately, the fresh dollar.”

Confidence in Supermarkets
With the food industry at the very center of a number of public debates, including GMO transparency, payment security, data privacy, food safety and minimum wages, the survey probed into supermarket perception and performance in these areas. Food safety is a supermarket strong suit, with confidence in supermarkets providing safe food and following recommended food safety measures at a high 4.17 on a five-point scale, where five is extremely confident. In terms of providing payment security from credit/debit card data getting stolen or hacked, supermarkets register a 3.83, while on providing privacy and security of personal data use by third parties, supermarkets score a 3.77. The public's perception of supermarkets compensating its employees with a fair wage registers at 3.76. The weakest area centers on the level of confidence that supermarkets provide complete transparency on whether products contain GMOs (3.52).

Trending Categories Offer Opportunities
Just as there are opportunities to improve in variety of locally-sourced foods, supermarkets should consider addressing assortment of allergen-free items, ethnic/international items and natural/organic items. All four of these areas registered among the lowest variety ratings in the survey and illustrate an opportunity gap between the popularity of these trending categories and their performance in supermarkets.

Shoppers Use of Money-Saving Measures
More than three-quarters of shoppers use some form of money-saving measure during their visit to the supermarket. Printed grocery circulars are read at home by 50 percent of shoppers and used in store by 25 percent, while electronic circulars are used by 21 percent. Clipped paper coupons (32 percent) are still more used than downloaded digital coupons (19 percent). Considering promotions, 17 percent use in-store only, 13 percent use a loyalty program, and just 5 percent use smartphone research and 4 percent social media promotions.

A summary of study highlights is available at www.retailfeedback.com. Grocery retailers and media outlets can obtain a free copy of the full report at report@retailfeedback.com. The study is based on a nationally-representative study of 1,200 supermarket shoppers and was prepared in conjunction with 210 Analytics, LLC.

About The Retail Feedback Group
The Retail Feedback Group offers a broad spectrum of research, consumer insight and consulting services. Its flagship program, Constant Customer Feedback (CCF), is the first automated feedback platform specifically designed and introduced for supermarket retailers, and is currently implemented in hundreds of locations across the United States. Other key RFG services include employee engagement and culture assessments, customer satisfaction surveys, consumer research and market analysis. For more information visit www.retailfeedback.com, follow on Twitter @retailfeedback, and read Retail Insights magazine on Flipboard.

Source: The Retail Feedback Group