Posts from the ‘Customer engagement’ Category
Is your brand as customer-centric as you think it is? Most leaders will say that the customer is at the core of everything they do. Yet, so many websites fall short on creating exceptional customer experiences. Creating a culture of customer-centricity involves every aspect of the customer journey: before, during, and after the sale.
Is your brand as customer-centric as you think it is? Take the quiz and see where you stack up:
- Is it easy to shop the site? Shop on the device most of your customers use, and score yourself against your most aspirational competitors. Is the site mobile optimized? Is it easy to contact customer support? Do you take mobile payments? Are returns easy? Hint: all those annoying things you haven’t had time to fix? They are friction points for your shopper. Friction=lower conversion. Removing friction points=opportunity to “wow” the customer. Getting the basics right matters more than the shiny new things.
- Is customer service empowered to make your customer happy? Can they solve the problem in one interaction? Can they make exceptions to policy without management approval? Your customer’s experience with the contact center will make or break her perception of the brand. Lose her trust here, and she’ll buy from a competitor next time. Delight her here, and you might create a customer for life. Empower your teams to do what’s right for the customer. Every time.
- Do you recognize and reward your best customers? Does everyone get the same treatment, or do you personalize based on shopping history, interests and activity? Do you have a loyalty program? Do you create value beyond promotions to inspire loyalty? Do you meaningfully support the causes she cares about? Do you recognize VIP customers when they call, chat or email?
- Do your customers shop with you again? What’s the average lifecycle of a customer? How many times does she buy per year, and what’s your LTV? How healthy is your email, SMS and organic traffic growth? If you’re buying new traffic without cultivating existing customers, you’ll be running on a very expensive (and unsustainable) hamster wheel.
- Do you listen to your customers? Do you ask your customers what they think? Are Voice of the Customer learnings shared regularly? Consider creating a customer panel comprised of your most loyal shoppers. Do you analyze the shopping funnel to understand drop-off points, and use both VOC and funnel metrics to drive your roadmap?
If you can’t say yes to all of these questions, it’s time to think about how you’ll begin to level-up. Here are a few tips to get you started:
Rule #1: Everyone in senior leadership needs to be shopping the brand as a customer regularly.
Rule #2: Create a customer-centricity report card and make sure you know where you stand.
Rule #3: Create a customer experience manifesto and make sure everyone across the organization exemplifies it at every touchpoint.
Rule #3: Don’t chase the shiny things at the expense of getting the basics right. The ratio should be basics: 80%, shiny things: 20% or less.
Customers have more choices than ever. Give them a reason to choose you.
Gilt has made shopping online even easier.
Online retailers are always looking for ways to make shopping online faster, easier and more streamlined. The best practices are just that, because they work- customers like to shop in an expected way, in an expected order, leading up to the cart and checkout, where the decision is really made. Customers like consistency. Except when there’s something even better.
Quick View is one of those things- it enables shoppers to browse lots of products without bouncing back and forth to the product page. Most retailers have implemented Quick View and have found it successfully increased engagement and even the customer’s propensity to buy.
Now, Gilt is making shopping even easier at the category level by building Quick View directly into the rollover. No need to click to see a ‘Quick View’. No window opening up with item details. Instead, on rollover- they show available size and color info, and an Add to Cart button. Beautiful!
This isn’t for everyone. Some customers may need more info- and they can still easily click through to get it. But for power shoppers- in particular, Gilt Groupe’s shopper, this is ideal. Now they can shop in a flash and be on their way. This is a perfect example of a retailer understanding their customer and finding ways to make the experience better.
Well done.
There is such a thing as overdoing your video content. When there’s a message I could just as easily (or more easily) scan via text- just give me the text. I can’t even count how many times I’ve clicked on an interesting link from Facebook, Linkedin or news media sites only to find that it’s a video link, and I can’t get to the content of the message unless I’m willing to wait through the ad, then sit through the video.
Video has it’s place- for entertainment, or education. But for news or content, give me text. I don’t want to have to go through it at a video’s pace- I want to see what it’s about and quickly move on.
What’s the best practice?
First, your link or image should clearly show that it’s a video- or you’re misleading me.
Second- provide the text transcript as an option.
Let the user have control over the experience.
Sounds simple, doesn’t it? If you add functionality to your site, you have to know what the customer expectation will be- and deliver on it. Getting it ALMOST right is the same as getting it wrong.
Here’s an example: one day, I was shopping on one of my favorite flash-sale sites- amazing brands and products at unusually great deals. What’s not to love? But there are so many items, and I have limited time and patience. That’s why I was so glad to see a refine-by-size feature that allows me to sort by just the product that would work for me- good! That’s a best practice, especially for a sale in which quantities are limited.
Refine by size feature- a best practice.
The rub? When the refine-by-size feature doesn’t deliver real-time information, it’s worse than having no refinements at all- because you’ve set my expectations for a personalized result, but then let me down on the delivery. Advice? Turn the refinements off until you can get it right. It’s not a value-add if it’s only right sometimes (like a faulty clock: it’s right at LEAST twice a day…).
Refine by size gone bad
I realize there are reasons these things happen- someone made a business decision based on a technical limitation or a tradeoff on site speed vs. accuracy…there are always drivers for things like this. But the bottom line is the customer experience you deliver. If you make a promise (showing a refinement by size)- then you have to deliver on it well or there’s no point. A bad experience actually detracts from the perception of your brand (they don’t deliver!). Customers will bail on your site a lot faster when frustrated with the functionality.
This is just one tiny example of the many decisions brands make every day that impact customer experience. Make sure you understand the impact when you make the business decision. If it’s not worth doing right- it may not be worth doing at all.
Free Shipping is still one of the top reasons customers decide to shop on one site vs. another. Yet most sites mention it in a minimal way, if all all. Why? It’s not a new message. It’s not sexy. Those who offer it know it’s a customer expectation. Many seem to think offering it is enough, but don’t see it as an important message at the start of the shopping process. That would be wrong.
The latest report from Forrester research shows that low prices and delivery costs are still the top 2 reasons consumers will revisit a site. As it turns out, fast shipping is much less important (#14 on the list of consumer priorities). While many retailers have downplayed free shipping to explore how to compete with Amazon’s popular Prime service, it has not taken taken the place of simple, free shipping in the consumer’s mind.
While over 92% of retailers online offer free shipping, only 78% actually say so on the homepage, and 22% don’t talk about shipping at all. Those that do promote it, for the most part, are not showing it prominently on the homepage. For more details on the data, see the free summary of Forrester’s report on Internet Retailer: Free Shipping Trumps Fast Shipping For Web Shoppers.
The do-now: Offer Free Shipping. Devote space to it. Make it prominent, persistent and legible on your homepage.
Some good examples:
Zappos has a rotating message for Free Shipping, Free Returns, and First Class Customer Service, while also promoting an offer above the navigation for Free next day shipping on clothing.
Neiman Marcus now offers Free Shipping and Free Returns, always.
Quidsy sites including Wag.com and Soap.com offer a prominent Free 2-day Shipping offer above the navigation.
Macy’s has a banner showing Free Shipping every day
Drugstore.com offers a prominent Everyday Free Shipping message
These are just a few of the best I’ve seen lately. There are a surprising number of major retail brands who don’t show a free shipping offer at all.
The do-now is to make shipping FREE- if it’s not already. Make it prominent. Make it global. It’s an easy “to-do” that will make a difference. With a minimum purchase, you can ensure it’s paying for itself with the volume it drives. And you can test to see where the sweet spot is, for both volume and AOV. Forrester also recommends that retailers promote it throughout the shopping path- not just on the homepage itself. Doing this gives customers reassurance as they browse thumbnail pages, product pages- and most importantly, the shopping cart. The important thing now is to start with the main message.
Do it now, before the holiday races begin.
Trunk Club is a personalized online shopping service for men.
If you’re a man that hates to shop, struggles with fashion sense, or is extremely limited on time-Trunk Club may be the best thing that ever happened to your wardrobe.
Ready for your next shipment? Just text your Personal Shopper, and you’re done.
Trunk Club is a personalized service that handpicks clothing for you- everything from shirts and jeans, to shoes and belts. The best thing is how the service is designed: It’s fast, it’s easy, and it’s tailored to your preferences. Each client is assigned a personal shopper, who will communicate with you as little or as much as you like. You can call, email, text- or even skype. You can specify what you do or don’t want (more black shoes! Only pants…need everything…and so on).
The free service starts with a quick style survey, in which you select your style type (clueless, confident or aficionado), choose from a range of looks and brands that reflect your style, add your measurements- and you’ll be matched with a personal shopper that puts together your first ‘trunk’. The survey takes less than a few minutes.
Shopping just got easier for men: Trunk Club sends you a selection, you choose what to keep.
When you get your trunk, you have 10 days to decide what you want to keep. You can keep it all, or just a portion, and send the rest back.
There are no automatic shipments. You simply call, email or text, when you’re ready for the next shipment.
CEO Brian Spaly started the service because he felt the experience of shopping for most men was too frustrating, overwhelming and time consuming. Before founding Trunk Club, he also founded a company named Bonobos, to create stylish clothing with a superior fit. In solving the problems of fit and shopping, he’s made it easy for men everywhere to avoid the dreaded trip to the mall.
Guys- if you like the idea of never having to shop again, give Trunk Club a try.
Your shopping mall just got a little smarter. Now there’s technology that allows stores to track customers movements through a store- where they stop, where they try on, when they buy- or what they look at before they walk out. It’s the same, in concept, to what retailers look at online: the customer path from the time a customer arrives, until the time they leave- what they add to cart, what they look at and for how long, and where they are when they decide to leave. Now stores can mine the same kind of measurable data: conversion (of those who come in, what percentage buys) and abandonment, and a glimpse into what’s generating interest as they walk through the store.
What could be controversial is that this tracking happens via your cellphone signal. If your wireless is on, the store software can ping your phone to keep track of where you are and what you’re doing. Is it an invasion of privacy? While it seems a little unnerving to be followed around like this, it’s really no different than what virtually every website does when you browse a site. And to be fair, we all know that there are abundant video cameras in stores and malls, so it’s not as if we couldn’t be watched before. As with website cookies, if you don’t like the tracking, you can turn it off- in this case, by turning off your phone’s wifi setting.
This technology gives stores the opportunity to better learn from what customers are doing- which, in concept- gives them the opportunity to improve the presentation to better serve customers. If they see that no one stops at the first sets of tables, or that certain racks get missed altogether, it might give them better ideas about how to re-configure the displays. By simply making what people want easier to find, they could sell more. So that could be a win-win.
The problem, as with web analytics, is that the data alone doesn’t give you the whole picture: now you know WHAT people are doing, but you don’t know WHY they’re doing it, or how they’re feeling while they’re doing it. This is still an important problem to solve- the things that make it hard to shop, like too tightly packed racks, or hard-to-find size labels, or a limited size range- these are things that affect my abandonment rate- but tracking my wifi will not reveal that. There’s no substitution for asking your customers what they think- not just the ones that buy- but the ones who don’t buy, too.
Next, we need to develop more sophistication in how we get that data. Surveys are okay for online shopping- but they are often long and tedious. Net-promoter surveys are great, because they ask just two questions: Would you recommend us to a friend? Why or why not?
What I want to see happen is the equivalent to the tapping a word on my kindle to see what it means: I want to see a way to provide feedback in context, in the moment- as it’s happening. That’s going to be the most meaningful information to get. Now that I think of it, when I notice a typo in a Kindle book, I wish there were a simple way to highlight it and send an alert, in the moment, in context. Amazon, take note.
Making your brand extraordinary isn’t about the grand gestures. You don’t have to be a $500 million company to create meaningful moments for your customers. And you can be any size at all to fail your customers in the blink of an eye.
A pass? Providing your full attention in the moment. Acknowledging the customer who is waiting. Saying ‘thank you’. A little surprise, like a Reward card or a sample in the box. Saying ‘yes’ instead of ‘no’.
Epic fail? A scornful response to an angry or annoying customer. Thinking the customer is stupid. Not finding it important to make each contact a positive one. Forgetting that the customer is why you get paid to show up at all.
We always say it’s the little things that make a difference, and yet it’s so easy to forget as we go about our days, with all the accumulated stresses and pressures that we’re dealing with, to make the effort to listen, to really hear, and to respond thoughtfully and generously. The people and companies that become legendary are the ones who are able to make the minutes count. Even the bad ones. But how do they do it? It starts with a clear, focused mission that puts the customer at the forefront. Consistent performance. A culture that sustains thoughtfulness as a value, even behind the scenes.
Have you every noticed how delighted you are when someone gives you what you want, right away, with a smile- even when you want to return something too late, or with the tags off, or you’re being antagonistic because you expect a ‘no’, and then you get a friendly ‘yes’? It’s a nice surprise. It can make you feel so great about an experience, and yet it’s really just such a small thing. It’s not easy to be that person who smiles and remains friendly when someone’s being difficult and antagonistic, when viscerally, you just want to respond in kind.
That’s what makes it special. It’s harder to be nice sometimes, but it’s a win-win for everyone. For a brand, it can create buzz. It can make you remarkable. And your customers will so happily want to bring friends to you, because it’s surprising and wonderful, and makes a difference in their day.
It reminds me of something that happened last week on the way home. Every day I commute to and from work on the bus. I completely zone out, reading or sleeping the entire way home. It’s the same, day after day. Except one night, last week, we pulled to the back of the parking lot, where the headlights showed a racoon- yes, a real racoon, standing inside a plastic storage box turned sideways, eating out of a Chinese food container. The next night, he was there again, eating from a new one. Now, every few days, we drive that way to see if he’s home. And usually, if we’re there at the same time, he is. Someone is bringing Chinese food to that Racoon. Or he’s having it delivered. Or he’s found a friendly, neighborhood garbage to raid. The point is- it was an extraordinary thing to see in the vast paved parking lot with hundreds of cars and people going about their daily commute. Just hanging out, in all his fuzzy glory, eating his lo mein.
It made us smile. And we’ve talked about it ever since. But really, it was just a racoon. What’s so special about that? It’s just that it was so unexpected. So out of context. It was remarkable.
A great customer experience is like that Racoon. It becomes something worth talking about.
jess blogs 