‘Traditional retailers are feeling the heat. Even as competition intensifies, shoppers’ visits to retail stores are declining every year, leading one industry veteran to ominously ask his peers, “Is anyone not seeing large traffic declines?”’ Here, BARE International shares a study by Emma Sopadjieva, Utpal M. Dholakia, Beth Benjamin for Harvard Business Review on 46,000 Shoppers Shows That Omnichannel Retailing Works.

Online retail, on the other hand, is thriving. Retail sales through digital channels (including mobile sales) increased by a massive 23% in 2015. Much of these gains have gone to online retailers. Amazon is the biggest beneficiary, now accounting for 26% of all online retail sales. What is more, as it continues to expand aggressively into new categories like grocery and fashion, Amazon’s existential threat to traditional retailers is greater than ever.

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About a week ago, Forbes published their annual list of The World’s 50 Most Valuable Sports Teams: “No sports league is as profitable as the NFL… and no one banked less than $26 million.” Four NFL teams made the top 10, with the other six being split across three other major sports. What is the National Football League doing differently to increase their loyal fans and profits?

They invest in their customers’ experiences, in and out of the stadium to start with. Here, BARE International shares an article by Steve Olenski for Forbes on how the NFL is Tackling Customer Experience.

‘Today’s brands know they have to have a successful game plan when it comes to creating and maintaining the customer experience (CX).  That’s because companies realize that is the playing field that involves a significant level of competition with customers at stake.

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‘The race to own customer experience is on! Companies are recognizing the importance of delivering an experience that makes them stand out from their competition. Some are learning the hard way. Here, BARE International shares an article by Shep Hyken for Forbes on Customer Experience Is The New Brand.

Last year United Airlines had a brand crisis, in which $1.4 billion in value was wiped out overnight when a passenger’s experience went viral on social media. And, you may not have heard about Juicero, but it fell victim to brand crisis when it was discovered the proprietary juice packets needed for its $699 juicer weren’t so proprietary, resulting in the company dropping the price of the juicer to $200, and then ultimately going out of business.

Be it customer service, product quality or just the way the customers feel about the companies they do business with, customer experience rises to the top of whether or not the customer will decide to keep doing business with a brand.

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