Personalization Driving E-Commerce
Personalization Driving E-Commerce
E-commerce is a big market that’s growing bigger Contents E-Commerce, Social Media Driving CRM, Experts Say A Top E-Commerce Strategy Seen as Ticket to Strong Sales
and more competitive every year, forcing companies to improve their CRM systems and break down silos between the two to better serve customers, both online and off-line. This E-Guide provides expert tips on strengthening ecommerce strategies through increased personalization, integration and real-time updates. E-Commerce, Social Media Driving CRM, Experts Say By: Albert McKeon Companies should think twice before proceeding with the same old website. They should also pause before dismissing the value of mobile applications and social CRM. Those words of advice come from two e-commerce experts who predict that technologically empowered consumers will either support or ignore a business based on initial judgments of a company‟s Web, mobile and social approaches. “The website experience is a major contributor to overall customer experience. If you do poorly at that, you don‟t get a second shot,” said Gene Alvarez, a research vice president and e-commerce analyst at the Stamford, Conn., research firm Gartner Inc. And first impressions will matter as time passes and the technology flourishes, Alvarez said. Gartner predicts that by 2015, companies will generate 50% of their sales through mobile applications and from social networking references. Choice driving e-commerce, CRM Until recently, when commerce still flowed primarily in the brick -and-mortar world, a customer had only about two stores to choose from, Alvarez said.
Page 2 of 9
Sponsored by
Personalization Driving E-Commerce
If a sales transaction went sour at one or even both of those stores, a customer had little recourse and at worst would tell only a few friends at a
Contents E-Commerce, Social Media Driving CRM, Experts Say A Top E-Commerce Strategy Seen as Ticket to Strong Sales
weekend barbecue about the bad experience, he said. In a day the story would be forgotten. Now, Alvarez said, with the Web and mobile applications, a customer not only has many more choices, but can also drive discus sion about a business and its products through social media. “This is why commerce is playing a huge role in CRM,” Alvarez said. “With incredible customer choice, they can easily switch.” Businesses recognize that e-commerce drives CRM and vice versa, Alvarez said. In a recent Gartner survey of CEO concerns, CRM topped the list, with e-commerce placing second, he said. Executives often look to retail for clues on how to balance e-commerce and CRM, he added, citing how retailers such as Amazon set the bar high on the customer experience: from ease of shopping to shipping to tracking to delivery to returns. “Executives are understanding it,” Alvarez said. “You have the factor of choice with the Web. Then you have the feedback model, the social component where if you get it wrong, you‟re hung publicly.” Understanding and doing are two different things, of course. That means businesses need to determine how they will approach e-commerce and CRM, according to Brian Walker, a vice president and analyst of e-commerce and multichannel technology at Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass. “There are many systems challenges here. It will be difficult,” Walker said of businesses‟ websites and other digital touchpoints. Companies continue to have a silo approach to customer experience management (CEM), making their e-commerce models unsustainable, Walker observed in a Forrester study on the subject last year.
Page 3 of 9
Sponsored by
Personalization Driving E-Commerce
“To create a campaign, they may have to go to one system for campaign
Contents E-Commerce, Social Media Driving CRM, Experts Say A Top E-Commerce Strategy Seen as Ticket to Strong Sales
tracking, another for content creation, another for commerce, another to test the campaign and yet another to measure success and determine the next best action,” he wrote. Dealing with Web, mobile and social channels mean companies must make supplemental or wholesale changes when upgrading CRM systems to accept and process the outpouring of customer interactions, Walker said in a telephone interview. The increased use of these channels has even led to the thought that CRM could get sidelined, he added. Reviewing merge of social CRM, e -commerce Gartner clients that have sites which look more like brochures now want to make their Web presence transactional, Alvarez said. Nothing discourages a customer more than visiting a website that looks outdated and offers scant opportunity for interaction, he added. “You go there and say, „Ooh,‟ ” he said. “Would you want to place your credit card information there? Would I want to do business with them?” But many other companies are improving their websites, Alvarez said. Where they still struggle, though, is social media, he said. They know they should use it, but they can‟t figure out how, he said. “Companies will ask, „What if they say bad things?‟ But that means you have to listen to the customer and win them back. If you don‟t, guess what? They‟ll tell their friends. They‟ll move on. It‟s too easy now.” Businesses also stumble over what customer personalization means, Walker said. It‟s not a well-defined term. “Is it recommendations? Is it adapting to the customer who wants to be communicated with? Is it responding to something they just brought in from another channel?” Walker said.
Page 4 of 9
Sponsored by
Personalization Driving E-Commerce
Companies can‟t lose, though, when they give the customer control, he
Contents E-Commerce, Social Media Driving CRM, Experts Say A Top E-Commerce Strategy Seen as Ticket to Strong Sales
added. All customers like improved communication and, most of all, deals on products and services, he said. “But there will be mistakes made, typically when a company is not thinking of the customer,” Walker said.
A Top E-Commerce Strategy Seen as Ticket to Strong Sales By: Sue Hildreth E-commerce is a big market that‟s growing bigger every year. In 2015, U.S. companies are expected to rake in $280 billion in sales through e-commerce efforts, according to Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass. Only two years ago, U.S. online retail sales amounted to $176.2 billion. Business owners who want a part of this growing market will need to invest more resources into providing exactly what their e-commerce customers are demanding, industry observers say. Online customers expect useful product information, access from any mobile device, intuitive interfaces, full support, a fast checkout process that accepts all payment methods and a place to rate their experiences. They don‟t tolerate screen freezes, transactional snafus or confusing menus. "Customers today expect their [shopping] experiences to be relevant, to meet their needs and to not require a lot of time," said Haluk Nural, a senior vice president for dunnhumby, an international retail consulting firm with headquarters in London. Those expectations sound deceptively easy. But they require a well-honed ecommerce strategy and a large investment in time, not to mention technology.
Page 5 of 9
Sponsored by
Personalization Driving E-Commerce
What should an e-commerce strategy contain, and how should a business go
Contents E-Commerce, Social Media Driving CRM, Experts Say A Top E-Commerce Strategy Seen as Ticket to Strong Sales
about evaluating its website? Experts point to six key factors that can make or break a customer‟s shopping experience and, ultimately, an e-commerce business. Navigation. A site that is hard to use or confusing to navigate can cause a visitor to give up and leave, so any customer experience strategy needs to start by taking a look at website design, said Brian K. Walker, an analyst at Forrester. Ask employees and customers to give feedback on how easy or difficult it is to find product information, connect to customer service or navigate the checkout process. How many clicks does it take to buy something? Are the menus clear and comprehensive or confusing? "Look at the usability of your interfaces as well as customer abandonment rates," Walker advised. "There‟s a lot of low-hanging fruit to be had by improving simple things like that." Integration. To provide a seamless e-commerce experience, the site must be integrated with back-end enterprise systems, including CRM, billing and order fulfillment. "You have to have to have control over all your data in order to deliver consistent and relevant experiences across various touch points," Walker said. "It‟s no longer OK to have e-commerce be a standalone system." Personalization. This involves anticipating a customer‟s needs and automatically serving up information and products that match those needs. Personalization can be done at a very basic level using cookies and IP tracking, which can show the visitor‟s geographic region. At the high end, personalization technologies use rules engines and real-time analytics to match unknown visitor data and existing customer CRM data with product characteristics and marketing offers. How sophisticated the
Page 6 of 9
Sponsored by
Personalization Driving E-Commerce
personalization needs to be depends on how many different products a business has and how many consumers it targets .
Contents E-Commerce, Social Media Driving CRM, Experts Say A Top E-Commerce Strategy Seen as Ticket to Strong Sales
Dunhumbyâ€&#x;s Nural creates informational content such as videos, blogs and articles for consumer goods manufacturers and their retail partnersâ€&#x; ecommerce sites. To maximize the value of that information, Nural and his colleagues use pre- and post-purchase data to estimate customer needs and provide customized Web views. "Some consumers are looking for value or diversity of selection or best price or convenience. We want to understand the customerâ€&#x;s needs state and make sure that the right communication happens at the right time," he said. Denis Pombriant, CEO of Beagle Research LLC in Stoughton, Mass., added that he would like to see more businesses collect and study customer information for better business insight. "We need to work at capturing and analyzing customer data for unmet needs," he said. Product associations. Nural also uses data to provide complementary product options to businesses so they can entice customers to buy more. These complementary products might urge the customer to purchase organic maple syrup to go with their organic waffles, for example, or wrapping paper to match party plates. "Retail e-commerce sites that can link multiple products into a complete solution will be the most successful," he said. Mobile access. Yankee Group Research Inc., a Boston research company focused on mobile technologies, found that 54% of consumers downloaded a mobile shopping application last year, while 83% were "interested" in mobile e-commerce. "Smartphone shoppers have changed the face of retail," noted Sheryl Kingstone, a director at the Yankee Group.
Page 7 of 9
Sponsored by
Personalization Driving E-Commerce
She advised e-commerce companies to stop treating mobile shopping as a separate experience and start integrating it with main e-commerce systems.
Contents E-Commerce, Social Media Driving CRM, Experts Say A Top E-Commerce Strategy Seen as Ticket to Strong Sales
Otherwise, mobile shoppers will continue to face "dead ends" such as click to-call buttons that don‟t work, she said. She also suggests investing in mobile e-commerce apps that natively support smartphones and other devices, as opposed to being limited to supporting a minimized website designed for mobile browsers. Updates. The constant change in products and consumer culture means ecommerce sites must keep up to date on customer sentiment as well as product information and content. Old product information and articles on yesterday‟s trends can make a site look abandoned. "E-commerce managers must regularly re-evaluate their strategies and update their sites," said Kate Leggett, a Forrester analyst. "You can‟t publish content then walk away from it." Neglect can tarnish brand image and sales. Walker said, "Consumers don‟t think, 'Hey that site's not very good,' but rather, „Your company‟s not very good.' "
Page 8 of 9
Sponsored by
Personalization Driving E-Commerce
Contents
Free resources for technology professionals TechTarget publishes targeted technology media that address your need for
E-Commerce, Social Media Driving CRM, Experts Say
information and resources for researching products, developing strategy and
A Top E-Commerce Strategy Seen as Ticket to Strong Sales
analysis and the Webâ€&#x;s largest library of vendor-provided white papers,
making cost-effective purchase decisions. Our network of technology -specific Web sites gives you access to industry experts, independent content and webcasts, podcasts, videos, virtual trade shows, research reports and more —drawing on the rich R&D resources of technology providers to address market trends, challenges and solutions. Our live events and virtual seminars give you access to vendor neutral, expert commentary and advice on the issues and challenges you face daily. Our social community IT Knowledge Exchange allows you to share real world information in real time with peers and experts.
What makes TechTarget unique? TechTarget is squarely focused on the enterprise IT space. Our team of editors and network of industry experts provide the richest, most relevant content to IT professionals and management. We leverage the immediacy of the Web, the networking and face-to-face opportunities of events and virtual events, and the ability to interact with peers—all to create compelling and actionable information for enterprise IT professionals across all industries and markets.
Related TechTarget Websites
Page 9 of 9
Sponsored by