Etisalat flagship store & new retail concept
— Overview
Staying ahead of the curve! The Connectiv team has been Etisalat’s partner of choice to design and implement a new branding and store concept, new to the middle east and innovative worldwide. Using high impact LED, eye-catching content and engaging interactive technology applications, the new Etisalat stores powered by RCD and Connectiv set a new unprecedented standard for next-gen experiential retail performance design, putting the empowered customer central.
Technologies
- LED and experiential marketing
- Self Service Kiosks
- Interactive Product Hero Table
- Content Management System
Services
- Customer journey and experience transformation
- Conversion optimisation
- Consultancy
Year
January 1, 2020
Location
Dubai, UAE
Client
Etisalat
Attention is the new scarce currency, and meanwhile customer expectations about how to interact with brands have changed drastically
- Attention spans are at their lowest ever (8 seconds) & still decreasing fast
- People are visual creatures
- Average time available to grab or loose attention: as low as a few seconds
Together with Etisalat we set out on a mission to gain back and capture consumer attention and provide store with the type of brand interactions, information flow and communication formats that go beyond expectations, leading to a powerful boost of positive brand perception and preference.
Overview
Retail is in constant transformation, as are consumer behaviours, processes and preferences. In order to continue to appeal to today’s ever more demanding consumers, staying ahead of the curve, and constantly revising and reinventing the brand experience is essential. Etisalat has since long been at the forefront of retail innovation, redefining retail through meaningful innovation. Rather than tuning in to trends Etisalat has been making the constant effort to stay ahead of them, together with Connectiv and RCD as their trusted partners. The new Etisalat store combines a myriad of visual and multi-sensory connected communication technologies aimed at facilitating, enhancing and transforming the customer experience. From attraction to entertainment, inspiration, conversion, and loyalisation, the new etisalat store design and visitor services flow sets out to cover every aspect of the customer decision making journey and tap into visitor’s mood and emotions. to do so, the physial space has been infused with clever interactive technologies, becoming almost organic symbiotic and essential organs of the new Etisalat store eco-system.
The installed digitized interactive customer applications are connected directly to the Etisalar corporate network, allowing store visitors to exercise a series of basic and advanced functions in a highly autonomous way using state-of-the-art and even futuristic interfaces, rendering the process easy, fascinating, enjoyable and engaging.
Challenge and objectives
78% of people want more digital service applications and stations in stores, hotels, etc. 60% prefer using them over interaction with personnel
Etisalat has been facing the challenges of a changing consumer expectations and technology landscape on multiple fronts. Both (telco) products and services retail has changed tremendously with the rise of omni-channel shopping and ever more integrated online customer platforms. The customer journey and competitive landscape for telecome services have been undergoing drastic changes. Consumers are now able to purchase, cancel, alter, etc. almost every on-going service easily online. Switching providers online has also never been easier. All this while ever more well-funded and commercially aggressive new market entrants pop up, heavily challenging vested leaders and aiming at capturing and converting clients online, often without the fixed costs and burden (or oppportunity?) of a wide and established physical store network. The challenge to stay ahead, beat competition and maintain or grow market share defined the objectives for this project:
- Capture people’s attention in a world with ever decreasing human attention spans
- Stand out and increase brand preference, show leadership and excellence
- Transform physical retail stores into a true strategic and tactical asset with clear ROI
- Embed the concept of shoppertainment in stores
- Empower consumers through an ever more digitized and integrated customer journey, providing them with a high degree of flexibility and control
- Offer consumers a seamless and uninterrupted digitally enhanced shopper experience across physical and digital channels
- Stay ahead of retail and customer trends, set the trend
- Impress and captivate store visitors – boost conversion
- Make the up- and cross-selling approach a softer, less invasive yet more effective one, being technology- and preferences-led rather than sales-person led
Solution
The visual Etisalat store design is truly unique in the entire region with highly impactful LED displays and dynamic appealing content welcoming and inviting people to the store from afar. Uniquely, the displays starting immediately at the storefront, and taking the visitors on a visual journey and spectacle once inside.
Etisalat leadership decided it was time to push its brand and retail store concept to new heights. Together with the team from Connectiv and RCD a forward-looking, future-proof retail concept was blueprinted, blending the physical retail space with a range of technology applications. Mixing passive, reactive and interactive technologies, an environment was created that would connect to consumers on multiple levels, using the power of digital communications and interactions, across the entire customer journey. Solidly embedded in the new concept design were the notions of:
- Attract: High Impact Connect MAX LED displays give the store a unique attraction power to capture bypassers attention and draw them in store, as well as induce Etisalat clients to come in and discover what the brand has new in store for them.
- Amaze / Entertain: Once inside the store, the visitor is immersed into na LED spectacle with walls, ceilings, and other parts of the store architecture made up entirely of LED displays. This provides a high entertainment value and true wow factor, setting the brand apart from competitors.
- Empower: Existing and potential clients can use the interactive AI-fuelled interactive SAS (Self Asitance Services) kiosks and slick digital ‘hero tables’ to browse through, configure, simulate, alter and purchase products, service and packages or deals in a fluent and appealing futuristic way, rendering the process easy, fascinating, enjoyable and engaging.
- Engage: Impactful, entertaining and relevant visual communication reinforces Etisalat’s powerful brand messaging and positioning and enhances the brand’s image, inspiring customers to appreciate the brand more and feel a strengthened sense of loyalty.
- Convert: Targeted visual in-store promotional messaging leads to more sales. Moreover, based on customer profile, purchase history, preferences and more, the interactive product and services stations can present ideal deals to the user interacting with them, increasing the chances of conversion.
- Grow: Clever and dynamic visual communications across the store entice people to purchase additional products and services, leading to more up and cross-selling.
Strengths
- The entire store solution, including all LED displays and interactive digital applications, are running on Connectiv’s content management system, easy to use and providing total flexibility and control in terms of screen content.
- Use of Connectiv’s own LED display technology provides maximum quality guarantee and service levels, 24/7, provided by local specialists.
- All interactive applications run directly onto the Etisalat main corporate network meaning that clients can make changes such as purchases, close contracts or change the configuration of their purchased products and services with direct effect.
- All screens are entirely synchronized for a complete and immersive visual experience.
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