3 Areas Resilient Businesses Should Focus on in 2023

Will we ever be out of “uncertain times”? Asking for a friend.

Looming recessions, inflation, layoffs, excess inventory — businesses are facing plenty of challenges going into 2023. That’s a bit of a change compared to last year’s lack of inventory and the Great Resignation. But at the same time, there’s a huge amount of opportunity, positivity and optimism as we look toward the new year.

After way too long, we’re resuming in-person parties, meetings, markets and brick-and-mortar shopping. In fact, store traffic on Thanksgiving Day was up 17 percent compared to 2021.

There’s a collective sense of gratitude to spend time with loved ones and put social distancing in the rear window. And how do we show gratitude to loved ones, partners and team members? Buying gifts, of course — music to the ears of retailers and wholesalers in our gift and home industry.

The busy holiday shopping season proved that customers may be spending cautiously, but they’re still spending nonetheless.

In-store retail sales increased 10.5 percent over 2021 this Thanksgiving weekend, while ecommerce saw a 12.5 percent increase. The spree continued with Cyber Monday, where total retail sales were up 9.7 percent year over year.

Gift and home businesses can rest assured there’s still a thriving market for gift giving, while taking smart steps to safeguard their business from the ups and downs of the economy.

Let’s dig into three areas resilient businesses should focus on in 2023.

Get Customer Experience Right

Getting the customer experience (CX) right fuels the majority of business goals. Customer retention, customer acquisition, brand recognition and loyalty are all cemented in delivering more appealing and effective customer experiences.

So, how do you do it? Top tips to improve the customer experience include:

• Audit your website to improve the user experience (UX). Look for areas that are confusing, clunky, multi-step or vague. Strengthen the organization, messaging and visual cues to improve clarity, while removing friction.
• Improve fundamentals. Website speed, security and trust worthiness put customers at ease and reduce pain points.
• Create stickiness with portals. Give sales reps and retailers access to intuitive tools, transparency and helpful information to manage their business.
• Ensure quick issue resolution. Clear information on customer service requests, like returns, refunds and other FAQs help customers own their shopping experience. Meanwhile, integrating chatbots and improved website search enables customers to get help as needed.

Don’t Pump the Breaks on Marketing

A common response to challenging economies is cutting marketing and advertising — a mistake that costs brands big time. This proved true during the pandemic where companies continuing to invest in marketing found themselves in a much more competitive position than those who stopped.

Marketing introduces your business, engages your audience, motivates purchases and nurtures loyalty. It drives action — I cannot overstate how powerful this is. It also pays off, in both retail and increasingly wholesale markets:

• For every $1 dollar invested in email marketing, brands see $36 dollars returned — higher than any other channel.
• For every $1 spent on Google Ads, brands see $2 returned.
• For every $1 invested in social media marketing, brands see $2.80 returned.

Think of multi-channel marketing as levers to pull to drive better performance. When the going gets tough, you don’t want to turn off the water hose pouring new customers, traffic, insights and sales into your business.

Put Together Your Dream Team

Evaluate your tools and platforms to determine what is (or is not) effective to grow your business. Finding redundancies across your Martech stack and partnerships is a great way to consolidate systems and reduce costs.

This might mean replacing multiple technology vendors with a single digital agency partner that becomes a one-stop shop for your digital strategy, website, marketing and advertising initiatives. It could also mean reassigning internal personnel to other tasks to help streamline other processes.

Once you have your “keep list,” invest in making your systems work better, so your teams don’t work harder in 2023.

For example, many businesses use Salesforce CRM to manage their customers, data, reporting and service inquiries — it’s a huge part of their business operations. Yet Salesforce is notoriously clunky to use. The right partner can audit and customize your Salesforce to enhance and expedite team tasks, so the system mimics the way you work. We’ve seen new hire training time decrease 80 percent by customizing Salesforce.

Go into 2023 with the right partnerships to offer objective recommendations and strategies to achieve your goals. Then, invest in your platforms to automate tasks, free up resources, and make your teams more efficient and accurate.

As partner and chief revenue officer for Whereoware, Joe Harris specializes in sales, conversion and technology optimization. For more than 15 years, Harris has helped gift and home industry clients embrace digital trends and technology to drive revenue and achieve unique customer acquisition, retention and maximization goals.

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