We have smartphones and smart TVs. So why shouldn’t we have Smart Receipts? Technology is becoming smarter by the second. The moment I refresh my browser, a kid in China invents a new tech software. Okay, well, that is in part true and in part an exaggeration. Smart Receipt technology is a phenomenon that is expected to change the Retail world drastically. Let's uncover that in the following sections.

Let’s bust a myth first. A smart Receipt is not like a typical Paper-receipt or Digital Receipt.

While both of them are similar in this sense that they have static elements like:

1. ^The details of the purchases made by the customer
2. Individual Item taxes and a summary
3. Buyer and Seller Details

What is a Smart Receipt?

A smart receipt is an intuitive receipt technology that has the prime objective of customer engagement with its users and helps brands and retailers to Acquire, Engage and eventually Retain their customers. To make you better understand the concept of how a smart receipt functions, here’s a step-by-step example of how Karnival's Smart Receipt Technology functions:

Generally speaking, any smart piece of technology is built-in with the capabilities to interact with the users based on the information given by the user. This allows smart technology to make recommendations based on the user’s interests, likes & dislikes. It avoids sending you information that doesn’t fit your inclinations. Take the example of Alexa. It does exactly what's instructed to it by the user.

Retailers can make use of this opportunity and incorporate smart receipts into their system. Once a customer has made a purchase, a smart receipt can allow the retailer to send personalized & targeted offerings on time. For a retailer, gaining customer insights is like hitting a jackpot. But, do most retailers recognize this? Once they understand that smart receipts can increase customer retention & sales & enhance the customer shopping experience, they’ll be able to adapt to the technology easily. The main focus of retail is the customer. Every Customer lies at the heart and soul of the retail industry. How helpful are the mundane and conventional ways of engaging with customers? Not a lot.

Speaking of a typical customer journey, a customer rarely gets to experience a quicker and smoother purchase journey. You enter the store, shop till you drop, pay for it, get the receipt, maybe get a “thank you for buying from us” & that’s it. After this, the customer moves on, the retailer moves on, and therein misses a very essential opportunity of delighting the customer.

Shall we let the customer leave your store just like that?

Most retailers do not understand the post-purchase customer journey. How would they? They are repeating what they were taught. They aren’t aware of how technology can help in filling the gap and improving customer success.

There are certain prerequisites that retailers lack for an engagement strategy:

1. Engagement Channels: Mapped with customer profile for personalization.
2. Customer’s Profile mapped with NPS, Surveys, Rewards & Customer Support.

Moreover, an untimely collection of feedback with zero personalization leads retailers to send untargeted offerings. This happens because these responses are not mapped against customer profile and transaction data.

With smart receipts, the post-purchase customer journey can be fixed.‍

Currently, the NPS system is boring & does not help in completing the customer’s journey effectively. In this case, smart receipts can act as a magic potion if retailers tie connected NPS, Feedback & Branching with a customer’s profile.

If you’re wondering why should you incorporate smart receipts, Karnival gives you a few reasons why you should:

• Referrals
• Web Pop-Ups
• Personalised Coupons and Action Based Rewards
• Mining of Customer data
• Answering A Question
• Making A Selection
• Commenting
• Sharing On Social Media
  

So, how can retailers be made aware of a technology that can enhance customer experience and increase customer retention? The onus lies on decision-makers.

The decision-makers must ensure that they’re introducing such technology within their ecosystem. The responsibility to train the staff depends on them. Understandably, technology can seem daunting and intimidating, therefore, people at the top of the hierarchy must ensure that their staff is trained as well as equipped with technology that empowers them and as a result, creates a seamless experience for the customers.

Now that we have a clear picture of how smart receipts can help you start your journey in improving customer experience, it’s important to take note of factors such as post-covid consumer behaviour & shifting the focus from ending the customer journey during purchase to extending it for as long as they remain your customers.

The idea should be to engage the customer in a way that allows them to revisit your store. Why end the effort once they exit? Why not continue to make them the focal point of retail? Think about it.