Setting the Scene
In desperate need for food, you enter the nearest grocery store in your vicinity. Upon entry, you see a well-organized store with an intensely homey feel. Immediately greeted by an employee with a warm smile and a hawaiian shirt, they guide you down the various isles of the store. They ask what you are looking for, if there are any dishes that you are looking to create, and if this is your first experience at what they informed you was Trader Joe’s. Immediately taken aback, the first five minutes in the store have given you but a taste of what a large corporation, such as Trader Joe’s, can do to create unfathomable amounts of customer loyalty and engagement. The following lines will highlight the most notable tactics used by the company as the final installment to the series of these success stories.
The “One of Zero” Experience
The company makes posts about how personable their shopping experience is. They showcase how the workers actively help in obtaining products, have great conversations with the guests, and even help them find the products to build the recipes they showcase. The showcase of such an experience forces viewers to re-evaluate how they imagine the shopping experience, and then have an intense desire to attend in person. Such a turnout is hard to obtain in any sense, but Trader Joe’s is able to do so for free.
Promotional video on the experience
The Recipes
Nothing says customer engagement and loyalty like providing most of the value and knowledge that your company provides for free. In fact, the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services found that when the consumer learns more about the products and how to use them their use becomes more effective, therefore engaging and sharing more about the company. Trader Joe’s utilizes this exact behavior to their advantage by posting recipes with their products. By providing these in-depth recipes for all their products, they are providing all the information and abilities required to make the most of their products for the benefit of the consumer. As a result, the aforementioned domino effect ensues and the company obtains more engagement than they could fathom.
Example of a posted recipe
Groups that have been created as compilations of the recipes
The Voice of the Company
Perhaps one of the most impressive and unique aspects to Trader Joe’s and its digital connection to the consumers is its podcast, Inside Trader Joe’s. In this podcast, the company speaks on the history of the company, how the company operates, as well as general news for their consumers. The existence of this media among all others is certainly to the benefit of the company, as researchers Yu-Hsin Chen and Ching-Jui Keng found multiple advantages to having a podcast. First, the use of a podcast absolutely increases the connectedness/engagement between the consumer and the business. Furthermore, they also came to the conclusion that this effect is at its strongest when the podcast is used to provide viewers with experiences that they could not normally obtain. More specifically, hearing from people that they would not otherwise have had the opportunity to interact with on such a personal level. Trader Joe’s took advantage of this, as the company’s CEO is a common guest on the podcast.
Example of a podcast with the CEO
In Summary
In a sense of finalement, it is now evident that customer engagement is obtainable at all levels of business. With no doubt as to the capabilities of these strategies, all that remains is to place them into action and create a future you could only dream of—until now.
Jeremy LaValley 