Kalibrate Client Advisory Board US Retailers: 2022

In October, Kalibrate hosted a selection of customers for our US retail Client Advisory Board (CAB), our first since before the pandemic.  

The CAB allows our customers to provide feedback on how well we’re helping them achieve their objectives and where we can do more. The session also included time for customers to give their priorities for the direction of our solutions, so our product development roadmap remains aligned with their needs.  

We were joined by stakeholders from retail concepts as diverse as convenience, quick service restaurant, healthcare, fuel, and apparel. Each of these brands brought their own perspective on how they interact with Kalibrate and where we can enhance both our product and service offer.  

Here, we cover just some of the themes emerging from the session. 

Customer experience

Kalibrate is committed to delivering outstanding customer experience. The CAB emphasized this as a critical component of our working relationship. From the UX of our platforms, the onboarding process, and ongoing support, CAB participants stressed the importance of experienced personnel readily available to help them get maximum value from our solutions.  

Kalibrate aims to be best-in-class when it comes to customer experience. Whether it’s our products or our people, our goal is to ensure every engagement our clients have with us is exceptional. In response, we will continue to run the annual Net Promotor Score survey to gauge customer satisfaction and identify opportunities for improvement. Future CAB sessions will give us further opportunities to strengthen the feedback loop to help us identify areas where we’re doing well and where can do more. We continue to invest in our products and people to reach even higher standards.  

Domain level expertise

CAB participants valued Kalibrate’s expertise and consider us ‘best in class’ for predictive analytics. While some providers have data or software capabilities, few have staff with the breadth of experience of working client-side, in retail businesses, to explain which underlying factors are driving outputs of a particular analytical processes. For example, not just providing a sales forecast; explaining how data points were contributing to a result. We’re delighted to be considered leaders in this field and continue to prioritize personnel with experience of working within retail organizations, so we understand the challenges our customers face both at micro and macro levels. 

Innovation

Our customers are busier than ever so efficiency and increased automation was priority for many. The removal of manual data entry process and its potential to introduce human error has been a theme for many brands keen to centralize their insight capabilities. CAB participants valued the ability to bring disparate data sources and execute analytics within our location intelligence platforms. Kalibrate continues to invest in driving efficiencies in our software. We recognize that less time spent collating data sources or implementing models means more time can be spent interrogating the results to arrive at the right strategic decisions. Our product roadmap includes imminent enhancements to help customers operate even more efficiently.  

Our development team shared a preliminary view of the updated UX/UI for KLI to gain feedback. Overall, the CAB was very impressed with the new look and feel and offered valuable input on design and suggestions to ensure a seamless rollout and user training.  

Data 

Predictably, data was high on the agenda. On mobility data, the CAB provided feedback on Competitive Insights. CAB participants were keen to stress the value of mobility data. The priority was usability; with various data providers available in the space, it’s critical that mobility data is easy to work with and offers useful insights. Kalibrate continues to emphasize the importance of quality data we offer to our clients. Future enhancements will provide easier data management tools alongside a holistic view of the data vendors we partner with.   

Going global  

Several CAB participants had responsibility for their brand’s international operations and we were keen to understand how Kalibrate’s global capabilities could help them achieve their objectives overseas. The feedback from participants was that there are significant international opportunities for many of their brands at present. One concern was the availability of reliable data in some markets. Kalibrate has relationships with various international data vendors but we’re always investigating new and interesting data globally that can add value to our clients. 

We’d like to thank the CAB for their contributions during the session and look forward to updating them, and our wider customer base, on progress next year.