New Autogrill online – offline marketing strategy and new customer experience.
SMART, the autobar of the future. The new concept reinvents spaces for different parking needs and becomes a small service hub.
If you want to win in the marketplace, you must continually implement your marketing strategy.
Presiding over the market. Expand consumer services. Improve what is called the customer experience.
Last Thursday, on my way back from a customer in Varese, stopping at the West Brugheria Autogrill, I had a pleasant surprise.
And so I discovered, fortuitously, the new concept store of the Autogrill Group, the world’s leading operator in mobile food services.
This project, I learned online, was developed in collaboration with Accenture’s Customer innovation network.
Autogrill Marketing and Customer Experience
I was not familiar with this new strategy; I had the opportunity to try it, first of all, as a customer.
It is what is called in marketing strategy the customer experience, that is, the customer’s experience with the brand, the services it provides or the products it sells.
Let me preface this by saying that I am a loyal customer of Autogrill.
Whenever I take a trip, whether short or long, I like to stop at Autogrill for a coffee, 5-minute stop, or a “technical break.”
The best thing is that I don’t need a real reason to stop, I simply do it because I enjoy it.
Autogrill, to maintain a corporate consistency and identity, have a distinct, recognizable layout and concept.
Exceptions to this are some Autogrill that are probably tests or market surveys that the company has carried out over time to understand the tastes, needs, and propensity to purchase of its customers.
For example, the Autogrill one encounters at the exit of the Milan > Como/Lecco highway is a prime example. Amazing, how can I not stop-I tell myself every time I take that road.
Let’s return to our experience at the West Brugheria truck stop.
What differentiates it from other locations is the location of the bar, central to the commercial area.
It thus turns out that the pouring counter, becomes even more of a focal point of the entire exhibition and commercial area.
Another aspect that struck me was the space dedicated to toilets, which is definitely huge compared to the commercial area.
There are two additional elements that distinguish and characterize this new Autogrill concept store, which is named SMART.
- The dedicated Amazon Locker area, where customers can pick up products purchased online.
- The lounge area equipped with network-connected tablets available to customers. While having breakfast, or a lunch break you can recharge your cell phone while simultaneously sending a document to print.
Autogrill marketing: a personal reflection on the new concept store
It is clear how this concept was developed to improve the customer experience, that is, to provide the traveler with additional reasons to make a stop at Autogrill.
One element that intrigues me is precisely the presence of an area equipped with tablets.
Autogrill, like all rest stops equipped with catering and bars, derives maximum commercial benefit, from the greater number of customers buying its products.
This implies that flows in and out of the store should be as fast as possible.
That is, the customer should buy as many products as possible, as quickly as possible, so that the area is accessible to other customers.
That is, the stay in the store should be as short as possible.
From this reflection, I deduce that the service area, thus oversized, fulfills the task of reducing the long lines of peak days and times as much as possible.
A second aspect, relates to the tablet area. By making tables available for customers, it means increasing people’s stay in the store.
Essentially the opposite of what I had laid out a few lines ago.
From these two reflections I deduce, that I did not understand Autogrill’s strategy, whether to decrease or increase the customer’s stay in the store.
Apart from these purely personal reflections, the Autogrill Group’s new strategy is interesting in one additional respect.
Autogrill marketing: the integration of the Amazon Locker area for picking up products purchased online
This strategy indicates how, a company purely oriented toward generating revenue from its point of sale, we might say offline, has also integrated an online strategy.
If you want to secure a future for your business, it is essential to stop, take some time and think about your business strategy.
By business strategy I mean marketing, business and production strategy. With this order of importance.
There is no point in making a product, or a service, if there is no market willing to buy it.
Even today, the Italian entrepreneur, first worries about putting a product into production, or opening a store or outlet. Then he finds out on his own skin if, what he has just created, has a market.
For this reason, the value chain sees marketing strategy at the top. That is, that set of activities that make it possible to understand whether an idea, a product or a service, can have market.
Throughonline analysis, it is possible to understand who our possible competitors are. How are they positioned online and in the market. Are they in a dominant position? What are the strengths of their products and services.
With the positioning strategy we define which market niche to preside over. What is our target audience. Accordingly, we define the characteristics that our product or service must have to meet demands and needs of the potential target audience.
The process cannot be backwards.
As the great Seth Godin says, “Don’t look for customers for your products, look for Products for your customers.”
Through online analysis I could find that:
- the product I wanted to make is already on the market
- competitors are well positioned in the market
Thanks to the focus strategy I invent a new product. I create a new market niche and have a huge competitive advantage over other companies.
This means implementing a winning marketing strategy. Creating the right conditions to fight on a battlefield more favorable to us.
Avoid the risks of risky investments.
Created the right strategy, you create the right product or service that meets the “stated” needs of the market.
Good strategy to all.
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