Control

In today’s retail marketplace, consumers are now in control thanks to new technologies and platforms (smart phones, social media, etc.) that provide access to endless amounts of pricing and product information. Shoppers still love the in-store experience, but they also expect to have a  seamless multichannel shopping experience. A recent Accenture study found that 49% of consumers said the best thing retailers can do to make shopping more convenient for consumers is to better integrate in-store, online and mobile shopping and 89% of respondents said it is important for retailers to let them shop the way they want. But with this newfound control, customers also want retailers to be available on their decision journey, when and if they need the help. In the store, that could mean the sales associate is available if the shopper has a specific question about a product but to not ask the shopper if they need help every five minutes. In the e-Commerce world, shoppers want and expect the ability to search and pull information on products on their own timetables — research from Cisco shows that 85% of shoppers want self-service access to digital content. However, if they can’t find the exact product that they need, shoppers will not hesitate to click away from the site in the blink of an eye. Retailers must give shoppers the option to drive their unique “decision journey” on their own terms and in their own language. In a recent webinar, Forrester analyst Julie Ask suggested that retailers move towards a “Big Mother” model instead of “Big Brother.” Retailers need to be helpful, not creepy, by delivering online shoppers relevant and contextual information, when, where and how they want to see it.

Simplicity

We have already established that retailers must provide the building blocks of relevancy and control to nurture the shopper-decision journey, but they must come together in an elegant and simple way for the experience to feel natural and fulfilling. A recent Corporate Executive Board study looked at the impact on stickiness in more than 40 different variables, and the single biggest driver was “decision simplicity” or the ease with which consumers can gather trustworthy information about a product. According to the study, “the best tool for measuring consumer-engagement efforts is the ‘decision-simplicity index,’ or a gauge of how easy it is for consumers to gather and understand information about a brand, how much they can trust the information they find, and how readily they can weigh their options. The easier a brand makes the purchase-decision journey, the higher its decision-simplicity score.” It is not surprising to find that the study indicated that brands scoring in the top quarter were 86% more likely to be purchased by consumers considering them, compared to those in the bottom quarter. In addition, consumers were 115% more likely to recommend the top-scoring brands to others. We all know that shoppers today are overwhelmed with the vast amounts of marketing and advertising information that they receive every day. To win consumer trust — and dollars — retailers must find better ways to create a more humanized discovery process that caters to the informational needs of each individual shopper. By providing a simplified and efficient shopper-decision journey, engagement will be maximized and shoppers will be satisfied in their purchase decisions. This in turn will equate to improved conversion rates and repeat purchases for retailers. 

 It is expensive and time-consuming for brands to manage social customer service, but the even larger problem with negative feedback on social media is that it erodes a company’s reputation. In the long term, a smarter and more effective solution is for companies to redirect customers away from the public forum of social media when they have a grievance. The way to do this is by making the company’s own website or call center an efficient alternative. By improving the quality of service on these owned channels, customers will realize that they will be heard and taken seriously when they bring their questions and complaints directly to the company. 

 Research from the Corporate Executive Board reveals that 77% of customers first turn to the company website when they have an issue that needs to be resolved. As many as 57% of customers end up on a live phone channel after they have failed to find the solution to the problem on the website. It is therefore imperative for customers to focus on beefing up the quality of their web and contact center customer service. In fact, to take this logic a step further, it can be very effective to integrate online self-service data with the contact center knowledge base so that data is effectively shared between both systems. When customers experience a long hold time, receive inconsistent or incorrect information, or are asked to wait while service representatives look for the right answer, it adds fuel to the fire. Customer service agents can do their job better if they have the tools and information they need to swiftly find the answer that customers are searching for.

The key is to diagnose the root causes of customer grievances, which often arise on the website and contact center first. This will allow companies to avoid the domino effect of complaint escalation. In other words, if customer questions are answered quickly on the web site, customers don’t feel the need to call the contact center. Less traffic to the call center generally results in shorter hold times. Less frustration with web and contact center based customer service channels will result in fewer social media complaints. Companies can avoid reputational damage caused by negative feedback on social media by fixing issues at their source, so consumers do not feel the need to take to social channels in the first place.