Brij’s Kait Stephens Talks Using QR Technology To Drive Growth

QR codes can drive repeat sales and build ongoing customer relationships regardless of channel – here’s how.

Integrating online and offline customer experiences is a challenge but not an impossible one to solve for.

The difficulty lies in ensuring a smooth, frictionless experience across multiple channels while providing consistent customer experiences.

In this episode, Kait Stephens, co-founder and CEO of Brij, shares the best QR code strategies to help you better connect with your customers through online and offline experiences, including: 

  • How to craft a personalized journey for customers and drive action post-purchase
  • The way to ensure a frictionless shopping experience to build customer loyalty
  • Strategies to increase customer engagement and gain valuable insights

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“What QR codes allow you to do is really connect that online and offline [experience], bring this digital content to your customers, and really iterate on the content that they're excited about, that they're resonating with in the same way that you would in the DTC world. You're constantly creating new content, iterating with what customers are responding to. Now you can do this from the product.”
Kait Stephens, co-founder and CEO of Brij

Meet Kait Stephens

Kait Stephens is the CEO and co-founder at Brij. She has worked in several fields, including retail investment and consumer technology. 

Aside from her professional achievements, she also founded the Hark Society, a nonprofit with the mission of providing out-of-school activities to children in underserved communities.

As both an investor and a consumer, she is passionate about the future of omnichannel retail and making the world a better place. 

Connect with Kait on: LinkedIn | Twitter

About Brij

Brij is a software platform that powers one-touch product registration and reorders by connecting brands to customers via a simple QR code scan.

Brij elevates the brand-consumer relationship by giving physical products enhanced digital experiences. Their goal is to improve how consumers engage with their favorite brands and the other way around. 

Learn more about Brij on: Linkedin | Website

The Checkout episode 49 unpacks:

In today’s episode, Adii Pienaar and Kait Stephensas discuss the best strategies for driving engagement and sales in omnichannel retail.

[2:41]

Why the DTC playbook is not working anymore

  • With the recent iOS 14.5 update, it’s now too expensive and difficult to acquire customers
  • “What we’re seeing is brands need to move into 3rd-party retailers like Amazon or Target to reach their customers in a more efficient way.”
[6:17]

Consistency across multiple channels

  • Consumers don’t really care where they purchase your brand but they want a consistent experience from a brand’s DTC to Amazon to in-store
  • Structurally, these different channels are setting up barriers for brands to speak to their customers
  • “It’s why a brand wants to have a DTC channel. They can use their brand voice to talk to the customer in the way that is  really unique and authentic to that brand.”
[8:44]

Cross-pollination between different channels

  • Amazon now makes up more than 50% of ecommerce When brands sell through Amazon, they don’t control the relationship with the customer. It’s truly a black box for them
  • “We’re definitely seeing this huge dynamic of brands who use Shopify as kind of their e-commerce hub,  but then are selling a large portion of their business through Amazon where they truly don’t know the customer.”
[9:45]

Bridging the gap between physical products and ecommerce

  • QR codes on your packaging can serve as a communication channel for your customers
  • If you’re selling your products through Amazon, you can use a QR code to provide benefits to your customer straight from the product in exchange of customer’s data “What we help brands do is to deliver this positive post-purchase customer experience. So allow them to register the product, warranty, or view product care instructions and easily reorder the product with the simple scan of a QR code.”
[12:16]

Best QR code practices

  • Product inserts with QR codes are seeing the highest level of engagement
  • Make the QR code very obvious to the consumer and have a clear call to action
  • “Think through where in the consumer’s journey that QR code and that action would be most impactful.That’s how we think about where we’d want to place that QR code.”
[17:17]

Keeping customers engaged post-purchase

  • In 3rd-party retailers, brands don’t have the same control over the storytelling for the brand. QR codes now make this possible in a post-purchase environment
  • “What QR codes allow you to do is really connect that online and offline [experience], bring this digital content to your customers, and really iterate on the content that they’re excited about.”
[18:39]

QR codes on Amazon products: Do’s and dont’s

  • Amazon is extremely sensitive to their reviews. At Brij they don’t recommend using QR codes to request reviews
  • If you’re a durable goods customer, product registration or warranty registration is the value-added way to capture first-party data
  • “What we’re seeing working is some combination of transactional. Is that a reorder? Is that a email capture? Is that a product registration combined with content that is interesting to your customer?”
[23:34]

Building relationship to drive repeat sales

  • After you’ve acquired this customer, how do you continue to tell your brand story in a way that they become that loyal repeat customer?
  • Bring customers into your ecosystem and deliver pieces of value to build that relationship
  • “It’s about having that relationship so that your brand is top of mind when that customer thinks about repurchasing.”
[26:32]

The one thing that will become true for DTC brands next year

  • Kate believes that customers will transact frictionlessly across every platform
  • “Some sort of connectivity that ties each of these very dis-intermediated channels together in a way that consumer can have a frictionless experience. I think that is what I am extremely passionate about.”