This is part of a series on the 5 E’s of Customer Journey. This post is looking at the Engage stage:

Some women’s fashion retailers have a “Bored Husbands Seat”, where men can sit quietly and comfortably.
The idea is that this takes away the time pressure involved in making decisions, which give the sales staff more opportunity to suggest additional items.

Supermarkets are well known for their deliberately engineered shopping experiences.
We naturally shop counter-clockwise, starting with fresh flowers and produce, with the most essential items scattered across the entire store.
The idea is that the longer you’re there, the more items you’ll buy.
Trolley size is also adjusted to prompt you to buy more, matched items are paired together, and brands pay more to get stocked at eye-level.
IGA even used research to determine the right BPM to encourage shoppers to move up and down aisles at the “right pace”.

ALDI however, is a jumble.
This makes shopping more like a hunt, with some intrigue and excitement over what bizarre item will be cheap this week.
As Ed Kavalee said, it’s a great place if you need to buy nine cans of soup and a bike.

Fleet Street Barbers offer a free beer with every haircut.
It makes so much sense: how do you make a bloke comfortable with sitting and talking with someone they’ve just met?
Put a drink in their hand.

Pressed Juices have one of their staff personally guide you through their menu, offering free samples of any juices you’d like to try.
This is great for the first-time visitor, as the menu doesn’t indicate how the end product will taste, so this takes out a lot of the perceived risk.
Once the customer has tried a sample, they’ll probably go on to buy the full product.

IKEA is notorious for its guided layout; encouraging shoppers to follow a deliberately designed path through visual cues.
First you go through the model apartments, then furniture, kitchenware, and a break at the restaurant.
Then it’s on to the smaller items, then the huge warehouse to pick up the flat packs.
What other furniture shop could insist on a minimum 20-minute journey?

Air New Zealand have the best safety videos in the industry.
Why do I say that? 
Because passengers actually watch them.
The airline constantly updates the videos in creative ways, like the one above.
Think about the joy this adds to the mundane experience of takeoff procedures, and the positive brand connections it creates.

Cart abandonment is a big problem for many online stores.
The longer a customer has to evaluate their purchase decision, the more likely they are to bail and close the tab.
Clever retailers make the purchase decision as fast and smooth as possible, so as not to spook the shopper.

Amazon look to increase your purchase size mid-shop, by suggesting things that “People who viewed X also bought…”.
It’s a clever way of using algorithms to replace what a shop assistant would have done in a showroom.

Uber changed the taxi experience at very little additional cost.
When you jump in the car, you and the driver already know each other’s names, and you’re offered (free) bottled water and mints.
How much does that actually cost the driver, 30-40 cents?
How much do these small acts of hospitality add to the engagement?

So what happens once the customer has made a decision? That's up next, the Exit stage...

You can skip straight to Entice, Enter, Engage, Exit, Extend and Making Improvements