CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

The experience customers have online is vastly improved in recent years, but it still is not good enough.

Some two-thirds of consumers who said they visited an online store intending to make a purchase left the site because the retailer did not provide enough information upon which to make a decision.

Engagement is everything a merchant does to get and keep customer attention. In the uncertain economy of 2008, customer engagement may prove to be the key to retail success. Our five principles are tried and true approaches that can help you produce a fresh, engaging experience.

THE FIVE PRINCIPLES

#1: Every Interaction Should Take Your Customer a Step Closer to His Goal

There are two key reasons to streamline your customer’s path to his goal. First, every additional step is an opportunity to abandon the interaction. Second, a streamlined process is actually attractive, making your company more desirable because you save your customer’s time and energy.

You should make sure you understand your customers’ goals and contexts, so that you can identify what the streamlined paths are. Focus on reducing the steps the customer is required to take to reach his goal. A design or offer that adds a step should be heavily debated, and its effects monitored.

See the Table for a list of site features that support this principle.

#2: Customer Experience Should Be Orchestrated From End-to-End

Customers may start their experience at your home page, but, more likely, they started from Google, an email, thumbing through your catalog or looking at your ad in the newspaper. You should orchestrate and manage the experience from each of these starting points. Your Internet search results and ads should be optimized to search words customers use on your site and link to customized landing or product pages. If your newspaper ad says “city shoes” then make sure that search phrase produces results on your site search. Retail and online stores should reflect the same campaigns and make it clear which offers are store- or Web-only.

#3: Make Sure Customers Are Successful

You must help customers make the right decision, and you must ensure they buy all the things they need. Your customer may not be an expert in what he is buying: support him with guides and product finders. Help him feel confident, and get practical information, by providing customer ratings reviews. Make it easy to compare products. Always offer the accessories your customer may need and explain why he needs them.

#4: Search Is the Foundation for Ecommerce – Get It Right

Your searching customer is really looking for the one perfect answer. Your challenge is to find it for him, despite foggy questions like “underwear” at Jockey.com. The best sites offer a clear set of choices to broaden, narrow, and steer the search in a different direction. Make reviews searchable, because there is information in reviews that exists nowhere else. Refinement choices should change after each refinement. Finally, track the percent of customers having unsuccessful search experiences. These are customers you didn’t engage.

#5: Enlist Customers to Help You Segment and Personalize

Personalization is a goal with one remaining obstacle: customer information. I think the solution is to enlist customers help. You could show them segments and ask them to choose, or if that makes you cringe, give them opportunities to provide smidgeons of information. If what they get in return is highly relevant search results and useful offers, they will be motivated. Have the call center collect observations: barking dog, crying baby, “my son’ back from soccer practice.” Or pick some segment-focused products, and use customers’ interests to make a segment assignment: if he looks at the iphone, he’s a trendy guy.

CONCLUSION

Every point of the interaction must be productive, leading the customer a step closer to success. This much seems obvious. But what is not so obvious, perhaps, is how to go about creating and delivering the good content, good guidance, and smooth path to completion that connects the customer with the products she needs. Apply our five principles to create the experience that will get more people buying online, buying more products, and buying more often. Use the Table to identify features that support customer engagement.

Site Features Supporting Customer Engagement
(Please download the PDF to see the table.)
Table. The five principles of engagement are supported by key site features. These features can be viewed at many websites: we offer a few examples here.