Retail stores have been working hard at improving their in-store experience – they would have to if they want to convince people to actually make the physical trip out to a brick-and-mortar store these days. But once customers buy their new phone, tablet, or whatever, that great in-store experience ends, and they are shepherded out the door with a quickstart pamphlet and not much else.

Austin-based technology company StepOne Inc specializes in shaping and measuring the online customer journey, and today StepOne is launching several new products that will help unify that experience: Post-Retail Engagement, Order to Advocate, and One Touch Help.

“When a customer goes into a retail store, they have a very personalized experience,” StepOne Co-Founder and CEO Alex Mitchell told me. “They get to ask the salesperson questions about what types of data plans make the most sense for them, what type of phone they should get, and so on. The current online experience is not personal at all. Support sites have a million pieces of content to wade through, and they have no idea who the customer is.”

Mitchell explained that the customer journey takes place on multiple platforms, not only in the store, and he believes that the online experience should be every bit as personalized as the in-store experience.

Unifying the customer journey

StepOne’s new Post-Retail Engagement product allows retailers to seamlessly funnel in-store customers into a personalized support experience. Customers receive a link via text message as soon as they leave the store with customized support that addresses all of the specific questions they may have about their new purchase.

The company’s Order to Advocate solution simplifies unboxing and onboarding for customers by eliminating overly simplified paper quickstart guides and replacing them with personalized online instructions. Customers are given a unique ID that can track the products they own and the service plans they subscribe to. The customer can then log in to a service portal using that ID and receive smart support that is custom tailored to the devices they own.

StepOne’s One Touch Help product proactively provides maintenance and troubleshooting support by predicting what content is most helpful for that specific customer, removing the burden on the customer to find the content when they may already be frustrated.

“You don’t want to force customers to Google how to install a product or how to solve a problem,” Mitchel explained. “You want to be proactive and answer those questions before they have to ask.”

While these new products are designed to improve the experience for the customer, they also integrate with StepOne’s data platforms and provide retailers with detailed metrics on what support topics customers view, how often they engage with support tools, what products they have purchased, what stores they have visited, and more.

Image courtesy of StepOne