Building a multi-billion pound business online
The recent valuation of Facebook at $104bn, the purchase of Instagram (by Facebook) for a billion dollars, and even Rakuten’s investment in social network Pinterest shows that there is serious money to be made in online business.
We ask all our merchants to join the Rakuten University to help them maximise their online sales, but some of the principles taught here can be applied to any online business, however they sell.
Here are some invaluable tips for online business and retailers that we’ve learnt over the years...
Customer experience strategy: 10 killer tactics for success
I’ve sat in on some really interesting customer experience talks over the past year or so. Most recently I participated in a roundtable at our Digital Cream event, moderated by Dr Mike Baxter, who asked the following question: “What’s the difference between the customer experience, and the user experience?”
Mike defined as the former as being “big picture”, whereas the latter is “an in-session, microscopic view”. Indeed, customer experience is a much broader church than user experience, though the two should be closely aligned.
How then can you set about improving the customer experience? In this post I have compiled a list of the areas that I think offer the biggest wins for anybody looking to delight customers.
The ultimate customer experience: infographic
It’s no secret that delivering an excellent customer experience has a positive impact on conversion rates and revenue.
Amazon is the perfect example of this. Its massive growth has been driven in no small part by its painless one-click payment system and excellent customer service.
This infographic, produced by Monetate, shows that 73% of consumers would buy again from a retailer if they had a superior customer experience, while 89% would shun a business if they had a bad experience.
Why social customer service will come of age in 2012
Social media and customer service would seem to be a match made in heaven. In 2012, more and more brands will commit beyond simply responding to customers on Twitter.
Brands are actively recruiting customers into online communities to help them develop products, give feedback and report issues.
First Direct’s ‘Live’ community discusses openly anything from savings rates to charitable donations, and includes a (very brave) sentiment tracker on the front page to show, live, what people think about the brand (it’s overwhelmingly positive at the time of writing).
Three quarters of travel research takes place online: survey
The internet places a massive role in the research process for travel products, with 71% of consumers having browsed for a flight, hotel or holiday in the last six months.
With the help of Toluna Quick, we surveyed 5,000 UK consumers in September as part of our research for the Econsultancy / Foviance Multichannel Customer Experience Report.
Here are some of the findings from the travel section of the report...
Gaming brands need to work on customer experience: survey
Consumers are less likely to recommend a gambling brand based on good customer experience than companies in the retail, mobile, banking and travel sectors.
Just 47% of consumers would endorse a gambling brand, compared with a high of 73% for retailers, and 64% for mobile phone brands, the second lowest score.
With the help of Toluna Quick, we surveyed 5,000 UK consumers in September as part of our research for the Econsultancy / Foviance Multichannel Customer Experience Report.
Here are some of the findings from the gaming section of the accompanying consumer survey report...
Etailers need to pay more attention to email customer service
I read with interest that Ryanair was the subject of a recent EU decision, thanks to its failure to provide an email address as a customer contact option.
While it's important that companies selling online should provide customer service by email, retailers should make sure that customers can easily find an email address, and that responses are within a reasonable time.
Unfortunately, this doesn't always happen, and many online retailers have plenty of room for improvement in their email customer service.
Where does customer service fit into your digital strategy?
Last week I attended a roundtable about customer service hosted by Foviance to mark the UK’s National Complaints Day.
A recurring theme was how customer service is often overlooked by those in the digital sector, despite being an area which permeates so many parts of an organisation.
Consequently, I began thinking about how companies need to identify and implement different areas of customer service.
Unhappy customers turn to social media: survey
Customers who experience problems when conducting transactions online are sharing these experiences on social media sites; 13% this year compared with 8% in 2008.
This is one of the findings of a Tealeaf survey of online customer behaviour, and provides another reminder that online retailers need to focus on customer experience, especially as 74% of online adults said negative comments read online have an influence on whether they will do business with a company.
Next website can't handle sales traffic
Next held a sale over the weekend, but it seems that its website wasn't properly prepared for the extra traffic, and many customers were asked to queue to enter the website.
I tried to access the Next sale a number of times on Saturday morning, and was asked to wait for up to six minutes on various occasions, while for others it was up to 20 minutes. Not good...
