Creating Step Change and an Empathetic CX in E-commerce

Step Change Theory is something I’ve spoken a lot about in marketing and with clients in the last few months. No one could have prepared for an experience like this and even the most beautifully crafted exit strategy could not have foreseen the effects COVID-19 has had on business of all sizes.

I believe the most important cornerstone of Step Change as it relates to COVID-19 marketing is that we, as marketers and brands, have the ability to craft a truly positive experience that this is both reflected in the touchpoints of your customer journey while forever changing the landscape of American E-commerce. in 2003 when China suffered the SARS outbreak a similar shift occurred which allowed footing for some of what became the largest global e-commerce players. If you want to learn more about this, you can read more about my article on that in Beauty Independent here.

Being that we're in such a different digital landscape than we were in 2003 and e-commerce had really just begun at the time. Then, people - marketers and customers alike-really didn't understand how to create the fundamental human element that lies at the base of any good digital marketing or CX strategy. This robotic messaging and advertising is still visible in the day-to-day marketing of some of the aforementioned big players  like Alibaba or JD. As marketers, our biggest challenge will be to find where crafting a step change strategy and embedding true human interaction in our workflow can form a lasting bond.

According to Marketing Week, amidst COVID-19 small businesses have shifted 29% more to customer retention versus acquisition. This is really important metric, as not only is it one of the constants of digital marketing costs analysis, that it's always and now more than ever much less expensive to retain an existing or loyal customer than it is to acquire a new one, but it speaks to how much more brand loyalty plays a role when we prioritize a nationwide experience. It shows that community and support is an emotive journey embedded in our hearts that can be translated to the shopping experience.

So how can we create an interaction that feels human and it feels authentic?

A loyalist, though less expensive to keep is a valuable coefficient for a referral creating a two-fold experience. In  plainer terms, you can both capitalize on retention while earning less expensive and more authentic acquisitions, afterall testimony and referral as the easiest way to acquire new customers. 

So how can we really embed a human interaction in our customer journey to create heightened brand loyalty while also remaining loyal to our overall brand objectives- like dare i say… revenue?  After all we all have numbers to answer to. The endgame, even from a socially conscious perspective, is to keep our employees on the payroll and service our clients and customers as well. 

One of the most important examples I've seen of this is where we find the beautiful triad of messaging that touches on the three most important factors in the CX experience: location, customer, and product. If you're running an e-commerce business those are probably the three most important pieces and they aren't always what you think. 

Location can obviously mean something in a geographical sense but it can also mean those who are not geographically closer- which if you're store is closed, is everyone.  We need to craft the recipe to give them an experience that they might even want to continue to interact with long-term, even when the option to come to a physical store is back on the table. Two-way texting or conversational marketing is my favorite way to do this. Text Marketing has made huge jumps in e-commerce revenue for a lot of brands. Some of the largest and most successful e-commerce brands make text a part of their every day or at least weekly marketing strategy as not only are people more available on their phones, the messaging is always crafted in a much shorter, urgent and concise way that makes sure that the point is never lost. 

When we talk with a client about shifting customer preferences, this is perhaps one of the most important part pieces of altering customer journey workflow what really are our customers preferring now. As people begin to experience more financial uncertainty, they inherently make more budgetary limitations. It's time we vehemently understand that even if we are a luxury brand, we need to decide what we can offer to extend a proverbial hand to our customers and level with their financial burden during this time. This is the time where discounting will not devalue brand equity. If you can't lower the price, that's absolutely fine there are many other ways to provide value as a brand without heavily discounting items, bundling is a great option, adding subscription methods, or supporting a cause in a one for one model.  

The final piece of the triad that is equally as important in the rest is product. Any good marketer will tell you selling a product, is never about selling a product. It's about selling an experience and showing that you know their deepest desires and you can provide them to your customer in the easiest, most fulfilling way. How can we provide the options that our customers want and make them available to them in the easiest and most convenient fashion?  In 2019, 40% of customers said that saving on shipping cost was the main reason they chose be BOPIS (Buy online, Pick up In store)  over shipping by mail for convenience and cost reasons but it also puts a really unreliable piece of the logistics puzzle -where there is often a lot of customer to brand trust- breakdown in the hands of the consumer. On the brand side it offers us the chance to eliminate last mile delivery and we can squeeze a little more profit out of each purchase.  BOPIS can be as simple as a pop-up currently.  This type of delivery method can also stifle  some of Amazon’s power over if you're a wholesaler of your own brand and you're competing e-commerce site or if you're a retailer with competition between Amazon as another retailer of brands you carry.

BOPIS has a large CX component, larger than you might think. Developing an exceptional CX and mobile experience is a simple and invaluable way of increasing average tickets, building brand trust, and inviting human experience into an otherwise digital shopping design. Shopify has an excellent job perfecting the online customers with their shop button. Just add a phone number and your checkout is all queued up. Overall this also requires CX developers to think of capabilities that produce a more organized, less clustered e-commerce store layout where people are more likely to complete their orders with more items in their cart. The automation piece comes into play when we want to let people know that their cart is ready and available for in-store pick up, this can be a seamless automated experience that requires no actual human interaction but creates a trustful and easy experience for the consumer . The additional revenue points are all found in BOPIS related personalization text emails and push notifications about related products or other things to try can increase the average ticket.  

Innovators dating back to the days of Michelangelo - and probably easier- have always attributed success to a fail-first mentality. When it comes to marketing, especially in this time we have this amazing and never-before seen opportunity to craft these innovative and completely novel customer experiences that will forever change the landscape of e-commerce and the way our customers interact with us as brands and marketers. As we all fumble through this financial and economic experience, customers are more willing to trial a "homegrown experience" that feels authentic and are less weary about glitchy screens, accidental live content slip-ups, etc. truly placing the emphasis on a much deeper psychological motif at at play-that we really are all in this together.

Interesting in crafting a more agile and economically relevant digital strategy? Reach out to us.