GameStop tailors omnichannel experience for millennials

Grapevine, Texas – It’s no secret that millennials are among the most avid consumers of video games. For video game retailer GameStop Corp., engaging millennials in a way that satisfies their needs and promotes loyalty is absolutely essential.



“Generations and the differences between them are important to GameStop,” Mike Hogan, executive VP of strategic business and brand development at GameStop, told Chain Store Age. “Millennials have been important to us for a long time and are now our single largest customer group.”



While Hogan stressed that GameStop treats every customer as an individual, the retailer also considers generational preferences when providing a tailored omnichannel customer experience.



“Millennials are more digital and comfortable with technology,” explained Hogan. “It has an impact on how we communicate with them.”



Jason Allen, VP of multichannel at GameStop, provided more detail on four key attributes of the retailer’s efforts to create an omnichannel customer experience that engages Millennials: curation, co-creation, community, and authenticity.



“People who walk into a GameStop store expect the associates to understand who they are the same way they are understood on GameStop.com,” said Allen.



Thus the retailer curates an individualized customer experience that includes a pilot of tablets that enable associates to have access to a customer’s specific preferences and history the moment they enter the store. Working across channels, GameStop also offers an individually tailored mobile app experience.



Co-creation efforts enable consumers to directly participate in designing the customer experience. This includes allowing GameStop Rewards loyalty members to vote on what special features to include in exclusive versions of games only sold at GameStop, as well as provide user ratings to share feedback.



To build community, GameStop uses its mobile app, as well as its e-commerce site and social media, to both connect with customers and let customers connect with each other. And when it comes to authenticity, GameStop strives to make everything about its customer engagement and experience authentic enough to meet the high standards of Millennials.



“Millennials don’t want to be sold, they want to be engaged with,” said Allen. “If a company says or writes about itself and its products, Millennials expect those claims to be true.”



To provide an authentic level of engagement, GameStop enables millennials to fact-check content or research information from a variety of channels. The company offers customers easy access to GameStop information digitally via social media channels, its website, free-to-play mobile games, and mobile app, as well as the printed and digital Game Informer magazine. The research, discovery and transaction stages can take place online, in-store, or across physical and digital channels.



To help stay on top of the latest developments in omnichannel customer engagement, GameStop runs its in-house GameStop Technology Institute IT development center. GameStop’s millennial strategy also extends to the large number of millennials working as associates and managers in its more than 4,200 U.S. stores. The retailer responds to these employees’ strong technology and video game background.



“Rather than use technology to replace human associates, we use it to augment them,” said Hogan. “Training is done in the form of a game. Millennials work for GameStop in part because they love the category. It makes the training more fun.”