JUST 7% OF CONSUMERS ARE ‘EXTREMELY SATISFIED’ THAT BRANDS PROVIDE A SEAMLESS, INTEGRATED, AND CONSISTENT EXPERIENCE ACROSS CHANNELS.
Users increasingly cross between channels and switch between devices. But ebusinesses struggle to keep up with an ever-increasing number of channels. Bricks-and-mortar, desktop, mobile, tablet, wearables – just keeping up with tailoring retail solutions to each platform is hard enough, let alone creating a seamless user journey between them. Yet, not taking steps to join up your channels can ruin your consumers’ perception of your brand. Imagine you’re relaxing on the sofa, browsing a brand’s website on your phone, when one of their ads happens to appear on your TV. The website offers you 10% off, but the TV says 30% off. The brand messaging contradicts itself across channels. It’s jarring. You wouldn’t know which channel was telling the ‘truth’ about the company.
Customers wouldn’t put up with confusion like this is in a bricks-and-mortar store. Why would they behave any differently across multiple channels? Future-thinking retailers need to begin investing time and resources into tearing down the walls between channels to create a new, authentic and consistent omnichannel experience. Already 55% of retailers say that their investments are being driven by the customer expectation of mature omniChannel capabilities and the businesses’ need to play catch-up with their competitors. This guide will walk you through the 8 best reasons brands need to begin investing in Omnichannel now to successfully meet rising consumer expectations. Let’s get started.
1. TO SECURE A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
44% OF RETAIL SALES WILL BE INFLUENCED BY CONNECTED RETAIL BY 2016. But many businesses won’t get on board until it’s too late and will find themselves playing catch-up, rather than securing a competitive advantage now. Omnichannel is a chance to engage with the rapidly growing commercial use of mobile devices and in-store digital. Europeans are set to spend £19.8 billion on mobile shopping in 2014 and consumers that purchase using multiple channels spend on average 4 to 5 times more than those who use only a single channel.
CHANGING TECHNOLOGIES THROW THE DOORS WIDE OPEN FOR INNOVATIONS IN RETAIL. Those retailers who are agile enough to adopt early and have an open mind to new technologies will best position themselves to gain the advantage over their competitors. Huge brands like Macy’s and Nordstrom are rolling out omnichannel experiences and Neiman Marcus, the luxury US department store, recently announced a $100m spend on expanding omnichannel. Your competitors are already on the move.
OMNICHANNEL IS A CHANCE TO ENGAGE WITH THE RAPIDLY GROWING COMMERCIAL USE OF MOBILE DEVICES AND INSTORE DIGITAL
2. TO CREATE AN AUTHENTIC USER EXPERIENCE CONSUMERS DON’T WANT TO THINK ABOUT THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CHANNELS. THEY SHOULD ALL SEEM THE SAME – CONSUMERS ARE ‘CHANNEL BLIND’. Creating an authentic user experience is achieved when, to the customer, the business is seen as one whole, seamless entity.
ACHIEVING THIS FLUID, HARMONIOUS USER EXPERIENCE IS HARDER THAN IT SOUNDS. 94% of retail decision-makers say their companies face significant barriers to integrating their channels and operating a truly joined-up, ‘omnichannel’ business. Global consulting firm Kurt Salmon surveyed the top ten omnichannel experiences, featuring brands like Topshop and House of Fraser. Even the leaders of the pack found it challenging to provide a perfectly fluid journey for their customers across all touch points. What’s the key takeaway? No one has totally cracked omnichannel - yet. But whilst it has not yet been perfected, investing now is the way to create and future-proof an authentic online consumer experience.
INTERACTING WITH A BRAND SHOULD BE THE SAME ON ANY DEVICE AND AT ANY TOUCHPOINT
3. TO BUILD A SINGLE CUSTOMER VIEW THE STARTING POINT OF OMNICHANNEL IS UNDERSTANDING YOUR CUSTOMER AS A SINGLE PERSON. This is crucial to be able to bring together their demographic information, their interests and their on-site behaviour under one universally accessible profile. “Today’s brand must find a way to connect all of its channels if it is truly going to understand what its customers are doing. It’s not just about what they’re doing in the store versus what they do online, for example, but understanding the continuum of the entire customer experience.” — David Seifert, VP ecommerce, LIDS Sports Group
BUT THIS IS INCREASINGLY DIFFICULT WHEN CHANNELS ARE MERGING. Already 23-35% of smartphone users use their devices in-store to take a photo of a product to receive product information, use their location to get local offers, scan barcodes or search for nearby stores. If they buy something afterwards, is this a bricks-and-mortar or a mobile sale? It’s both! They wouldn’t have purchased without the additional information that your mobile channel can bring to the physical store. Equally, when you buy on a mobile device – say via click-and-collect – and then go down to your local store to pick up the purchase, you’re still the same person! The result will be not only higher conversion rates, but also a chance to build a genuine relationship with the consumer.
RETAILERS NEED TO RECOGNISE THIS AND DELIVER A CONSISTENT SHOPPING EXPERIENCE FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL, AS AN INDIVIDUAL
4. TO TEAR DOWN CHANNEL WALLS
CONSUMERS DON’T KNOW WHAT CHANNELS ARE. They don’t search or shop in ‘channels’ – they just search and shop! Neither do they realise (or care) that your sales and marketing teams operate on completely different wavelengths, or that your warehouses don’t have the same customer information as your inner city stores. Imagine the frustration of a customer who repeatedly has to provide personal, payment or order information to the different branches or faces of your company. Yet 35% of retailers cited a lack of technology-spanning ecommerce, mobile and the store as a barrier to success. Make sure you have technology that can provide actionable customer insights across all channels, has highly granular behavioural information, offers flexible customer segmentation capacity and can deliver the remarketing products that can make the most of this data.
DON’T LET THESE ISOLATED, SILOED SYSTEMS AND CHANNELS BREAK UP THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
5. TO BENEFIT FROM BIG DATA, REAL-TIME ANALYTICS AND SEGMENTATION 86% OF HIGH-PERFORMING COMPANIES USE DATA AND ANALYTICS. Once the walls have been torn down and you have in mind that single customer view, it’s time to rock the Big Data. Data can be collated, analysed and applied to blend customer insights across all channels in order to optimise the customer experience. For example, if you integrate customer and shopping data with behavioural profiling, you could dynamically tailor in-page recommendations and content in real-time to match the interests of each user. Going further, segmentation is one of the cornerstones of high-end omnichannel. This involves profiling your customers and breaking them up into distinct groups (or ‘buckets’) by appropriate metrics such as interests, purchase history and geolocation. It works as well: proper customer segmentation increases e-mail remarketing open rates by 30% and click-through rates by 50%.
SEGMENTATION IS ONE OF THE CORNERSTONES OF HIGH-END OMNICHANNEL
6. TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME UNDERSTANDING YOUR CUSTOMER, OBSERVING THEM WITH REAL-TIME ANALYTICS AND THEN SEGMENTING THEM SMARTLY IS AS USELESS AS AN INVISIBLE CHECKOUT BUTTON UNLESS YOU DO SOMETHING WITH IT. Use your smart, segmented user data to mould a personalised buyer journey for each individual user – building a relationship with them and increasing conversion rates. Do you think you should treat customers in one country the same as ones in another? Should customers who have an account with you be treated differently from those who don’t?
HERE ARE SOME STARTER SUGGESTIONS: 1. Treat first-timers differently from returning customers. A classic that always delivers. 2. Treat users differently based on their location, time or what device they are using to browse. On a mobile in London at rush hour? On a desktop in Cumbria on the weekend? 3. If a user abandons a basket, why not remind them of the contents of that basket with a remarketing e-mail, incentivising the customer to return and complete the purchase?
DATA IS USELESS UNLESS YOU DO SOMETHING WITH IT
7. TO BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN BRAND CAPABILITIES AND CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS AN ABILITY TO EASILY SWITCH BETWEEN BRANDS MEANS THAT CONSUMERS ARE VERY AWARE OF DIFFERENT BRAND OFFERINGS. Just as when you’re ordering off a menu, if there are loads of options, you want to make the right choice. The result? Consumer choice ramps up consumer expectations. And it’s a sure thing that in the near future consumers will take omnichannel for granted. High expectations combined with tech and shopping know-how across the board put the consumers in the driving seat. And brands are more aware than ever before that their livelihoods rely on the consistent satisfaction of consumer demands. Put simply: every flaw in the customer experience gives another brand an opportunity to out-do you and nab that sale.
IN THE FUTURE, CONSUMERS WILL TAKE OMNICHANNEL FOR GRANTED
8. TO DRIVE SALES OPPORTUNITIES
MOBILE SITE TRAFFIC REACHED A RECORD 49.2% IN MARCH 2014, NEARLY TRIPLE THE RATE OF TWO YEARS EARLIER. And as powerful, internet-enabled tech in the hands of all becomes the norm, traditional methods of retail are mutating. We already have technologies that were previously inconceivable, such as 4G, contactless payments, ‘paying with a tweet’, hyper-personalisation, and programmatic ads among others. Consumers can (and do!) purchase at any time, in any way, on any channel, wherever they are.
THIS MEANS OPPORTUNITY. Sales on smartphones and tablets reached a new high of 37.2 percent of all site sales in December 2013, up more than four-fold from December 2011. Brands are – unsurprisingly - throwing themselves at these new markets, making each opportunity incredibly competitive. The brands that will win out will be those that take advantage of all channels in an integrated fashion and start thinking outside the box when it comes to original, personalised user journeys. What about clinching a lead on a mobile phone with an exit-intent overlay, before rescuing an abandoned basket with a personalised e-mail retargeting campaign? Or recognizing a returning customer as one individual across multiple channels and rewarding them for their loyalty?
THE BRANDS THAT WILL WIN OUT WILL BE THOSE THAT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ALL CHANNELS
YOUR BRAND LOYALTY CHEAT SHEET '' Recognise that omnichannel will soon be the retail standard. '' Grab the current and future opportunities – commit to future-proofing your online customer experience now. '' Understand your customer as an individual – create the single customer view. '' Tear down the walls between your channels. Destroy those silos! '' Maximise the output you are getting from big data and analytics – don’t let them just sit there! '' Use the data to harness the power of real-time personalisation in ways that enhance the user journey. '' Meet consumer expectations head on by expanding your brand capabilities, rather than sticking with business-as-usual. '' Secure that all-important competitive advantage with an omnichannel service that is truly greater than the sum of its parts.
THE WAY FORWARD
Here at Yieldify we partner with global online brands to convert visitors into customers. We do this by tearing down the barriers between businesses and their customers – across all channels. We use our real-time analytics to allow businesses to mould a personalised buyer journey for the modern, omnichannel consumer.
REAL-TIME PERSONALISATION We can track and target consumers at any point in the user journey. Bringing users back from the point of abandonment with our Exit-Intent technology, provide dynamic, user-specific in-page recommendations; or rescue abandoned baskets with e-mail retargeting tailored to each individual user’s basket. Personalise the online customer experience for each of your users by targeting across a wide range of user metrics – session, basket value, page or product interest, geolocation, device, even the weather. Get in touch to request a demo.
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CONCLUSION OMNICHANNEL MEANS THAT THE WHOLE IS GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS. Stop playing catch-up and start integrating your channels now. It is crystal clear that consumer expectations are rapidly shifting, and today’s consumer demands an integrated omnichannel experience. This is not to say that every retailer needs to implement all derivatives of omnichannel fulfilment. However, by actively assessing your customer’s needs and establishing a process for integrating new omnichannel capabilities that meet these needs, retailers can begin to learn which initiatives can have the greatest impact on their businesses. Retailers need to stop focusing on siloed channel strategies and start ensuring that they are meeting the needs of consumers wherever, whenever, and however they want. Those retailers that take a wait-and-see approach to omnichannel initiatives risk missing the expectations of their customers today.
ABOUT YIELDIFY Yieldify is an ecommerce solution that converts visitors into customers. We harness our multi-channel abandonment analytics platform to mould personalised buyer journeys for the modern, always-on consumer. Our expert teams build, manage and measure tailored on-site and email campaigns, across every channel. Our technology creates incremental value for top global brands by optimising their online conversion rates and driving lead generation. Founded by brothers Jay and Meelan Radia in June 2013, Yieldify is among the fastest Sydney coming soon – Yieldify enables ebusinesses around the world to communicate better with their consumers.
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