Google launches tool to help retailers boost customer experience

The tech giant unveiled its free Grow My Store service, which is available to all retailers through the Think With Google platform, at the World Retail Congress in Amsterdam today.

Google’s latest tool will allow retailers to assess the performance of their ecommerce sites, help them understand consumer habits and demands, and provide guidance on how they can improve.

Grow My Store assesses eight main metrics including the amount of product information offered on a retailer’s website, whether or not it provides details of bricks-and-mortar locations, the flexibility of its delivery options and how personalised the website is.

The tool also tests the amount of friction involved in the shopping experience, the ability of the website to operate on mobile, customer service options and payment security.

Google retail lead for EMEA marketing Ruth Ballett said: “We have clearly seen at Google that there is a little bit of a disconnect. We’ve seen through all of our studies and the research we’ve been doing in the industry over the last couple of years, and we also see from our own data, the expectations of consumers and how those are accelerating faster and faster in the retail space.

“We wanted to build a tool that would help retailers to really understand and learn more about this data and understand how their business was matching up to that data.”