What Drives Customers to Stores?

A study commissioned by PCR and compiled by Infinite Field Marketing addressed the topic of what drives customers to stores. The study consisted of 250 respondents in the UK. One of the key concerns of the study was when purchasing an IT/consumer electronics product what makes you go to the retailer in the first place.

Too often studies start after the customer has arrived and then examines the customers attitudes and performance. This study has an unusual starting point by first examining the factors that lead customers to the store in the first place.

While their findings are not unexpected, they have quantified and calibrated what many have perceived in the past. The major findings of what drives customers to the store are:
1. Reputation seems to be the clear leader with 36 percent of the respondents identifying this as the most important factor.
2. The second factor was cost and approximately 25 percent reported that as the driving factor.

One conclusion that continues to show in the research is that customer service is a key component of reputation. Since word-of-mouth has become an important factor in in both marketing and PR, reputation often has customer service as a cornerstone of their reputation both in the UK as well as the US. It would be no surprise to find similar results in other countries.

The bottom line is that customer service may be one of the most important forces that drives customer TO YOUR STORE. Some proof can be found in the results of this survey.