But, in reality, your work is only just beginning. It costs roughly 5 to 25 times more to attract a new customer. The even more shocking statistic is that only 18% of companies focus on customer retention.

Such a statistic presents a unique opportunity to be one step ahead of your competitors.

The difference is the quality of the post purchase experience for the customer.

The Question of Why

Here’s the truth:

If you finish paying attention to customers once they have completed a sale, you are foregoing the chance to convert them into loyal customers.

The post purchase experience is currently flawed, which is a similar condition to the product discovery process.

The reason is that the post purchase experience is rarely customer focused.

There is a predominant focus on increasing revenue as opposed to what the customer actually needs. Ecommerce needs to reconsider this and improve.

The key to increasing customer lifetime value centers around providing added value even in the aftermath of a purchase.

So how can online businesses optimize the post purchase customer experience?

Let’s see.

5 Ways That You Can Improve Digital Customer Service and Support

1. Do More Than Generic Notifications

The way to bring down your customer acquisition costs is to enhance your post purchase customer experience.

Every interaction with your customer should be used to make them feel valued and important as a customer.

There are many opportunities for you to communicate in a way that leaves an impression on your customers.

Personalized emails can be deployed at every milestone along the post purchase journey. Examples of these instances are:

• Order confirmations
• Shipping confirmations
• Returns or exchanges
• Loyalty program communication
• Notification of new products and services

Online businesses can potentially lose the chance to cultivate customer loyalty when they send standardized notifications.

It is an overlooked statistic that order confirmations are the most opened emails.

Say thank you to make use of this engagement and improve the post purchase experience of your customer.

Keep in mind that customers choosing your products, over a competitors’ product, is a privilege. They could always go somewhere else if they wanted.

Shipping notifications can also be an opportunity to inform customers that help is available for things such as setups, product tips and warranties.

This simple reminder can improve customer retention whilst optimizing the post purchase experience.

2. Give Information

This seems self explanatory, but it is not. Isn’t it frustrating when you purchase something and can’t even assemble it?

It is even more disheartening when the only guidance you are given are a few pictures that aren’t clear.

Most of us have experienced this.

Online stores should be proactive when it comes to offering information to their customers. You shouldn’t wait for customers to congest your customer support channels for answers that would otherwise be quickly and easily answered.

What should be done instead?

Give the customer all relevant product information and how to use it properly. The customer should enjoy the product with a minimum amount of hassle.

It could be an option to provide how to guides, FAQs and information booklets with purchases.

Product care tips should also be included. This approach encourages customers to buy from you again.

If these don’t help, ecommerce stores could also make use of service assistants to help with the most often asked troubleshooting and setup questions.

Unanswered questions is one of the most frustrating things that a customer could experience.

3. Set Up Multichannel Customer Support

Omni channel support is vital to an optimized post purchase customer experience.

But what does this mean?

Omnichannel support is focused on cultivating a personalized and consistent experience for online customers across all channels and devices.

The only way that this can be implemented properly is through the use of AI.

Bots and service assistants can easily field everyday and basic questions from a customer.

If a query is too complicated, and requires a more elaborate response, the enquiry can be sent to a live support agent.

In the longer term, this helps lessen customer churn.

What kind of added value do automated bots and service assistants give?

Service assistants help to guide customers through best practices with easy to follow instructions that they can navigate at their leisure.

In addition, service assistants can respond to common questions, at any hour of the day, which frees up live chat or phone support staff to focus on more complex customer support needs.

In the longer term, customers are kept happy when an omnichannel approach to support is used. And it is more likely that they will return.

4. Provide Product Recommendations

Product recommendations are there for more than just generating money.

They serve as an instance where you can give the customer what they need when they may not be aware of it.

Data from your ecommerce store will give you an indication of what products people buy together. This could be in the same purchase or on a separate occasion.

For example, if you sell office equipment, customers who buy office desks are probably fitting out a workplace.

That might suggest that they could need chairs, drawers, and things like stationery.

Additionally, information on additional products that are bought most often can help online stores create the right communication to their customers.

Personalized data also assists with more relevant recommendations for the individual customer.

5. Refund & Return Policies

Sometimes, things just don’t work as they should. Customers want your product to work for them.

Yes, you are in business to make a profit but don’t be an idiot to your customers.

Make your refund and return policies known to your customers.

Being transparent with these policies builds trust with your customers as it shows that you are concerned about what they need.

So if something doesn’t work, offer a refund or recommend an alternative product to the customer.

The reality is that the post purchase experience for online shoppers is broken. Using AI tools can fix this whilst increasing customer loyalty.

The post 5 Tips To Improve Post Purchase Customer Experience first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

Shopping has been an area that has been significantly impacted by digital uptake. Consumers are becoming more self-reliant and shopping is transitioning to digital channels. At its essence, though, buying products will always incorporate a social element.

Buying is about interactions, the conversations, about asking and responding.

Purchasing anything seems unachievable without asking questions such as “Is this available in another color? What do you have available for under $100? Is there something larger but still around the same price? What other options are there?”

In the current ecommerce environment, there doesn’t seem to be anywhere to ask these sorts of questions in the way that people typically like to ask them. Consumers are first expected to refine their needs through the use of categories and filters. This process is unnatural at best and clunky at its worst. It accepts the idea that people should adapt their approach to suit the machines.

But the tides are turning.

Conversational ecommerce has landed and it allows businesses and consumers to have a conversation again. The journey toward a purchase becomes a conversation. This can be achieved through a number of channels and avenues. Examples might be a chat bot, product finder and many other tools.

So how are we able to shop without being able to actually look at and touch the products that we want to purchase? Technology usually steps in to achieve the unachievable and it is a matter of time before we will be able to shop by talking to an AI powered program or by texting a chat support bot.

The typical challenges remain.

Preparing for conversational ecommerce requires a complete structural redo. Being able to develop voice powered consumer experiences involves rethinking the way that things have been done for decades.

Shopping is intrinsically different from the many other tasks that we do online. It’s not a straightforward process – rather a convoluted path with many directions that a customer can take. Programming machines to keep in step with the changing whims of the human psyche and developing your customer journey to provide for natural humanesque responses will be a tricky feat.

Search optimization will need to be reimagined. Integrating payments will also need to be implemented with a high degree of finesse and security.

If you set your business up for conversational ecommerce now the yields will be worth it. Indeed, if you don’t embrace this technology you may be left behind.

Optimize for Voice Search

Humans picked up speech first and, later, writing and reading emerged. In terms of computers, the reverse has happened. Text input came first and then voice recognition entered the picture. Which also means that we need to unlearn and relearn a new approach.

When interacting with conversational ecommerce programs, customers won’t be talking in keywords.

At the time when voice adoption truly picks up, search queries will instead be dramatically different. Natural language needs to be embraced. Responses to basic questions such as “I am wanting to buy a new pair of running shoes” need to be answered like a boss.

Questions such as “Which school bag do I need for first grade?“ will pop up and you’ll need to have a prepared answer. A customer might ask, “show me some good options for girls sports shoes” and you need to have appropriate answers ready such as, “Okay, you are looking for running or sports shoes?” and have appropriate products ready based on how the customer responds.

It would rarely be appropriate to offer product choices after the first question response. More questions would usually be needed. This is where it is critical to ask the right questions so that you can point the customer to the most appropriate product for them. They would be able to decide more quickly and would feel a sense of satisfaction with what they have purchased.

Write Product Descriptions That Come Alive

Certain avenues of conversational ecommerce don’t have any visual interface so this requires an exceptionally written product description to explain everything a buyer would want to know by listening.

Product descriptions should contain answers to all commonly asked questions.

Even if a customer has a visual interface to work with, they may still have some questions that they would prefer to ask verbally. These questions might be, “Is this camera waterproof?”

In this case, you would need to anticipate all the various questions that may arise and enable voice specific metadata that can be relayed to the customer.

From yes or no answers right through to elaborate responses, you will need to consider everything.

Remember Text Conversations

We have mentioned talking a lot here but there is also another form of conversation.

Messaging apps and chatbots have the capacity to take orders, present suggestions and compare products and this should be factored into your strategy.

Messaging apps are a convenient and enjoyable tool when it comes to shopping experiences and should be embraced.

Consider How You Accept Payments

Accepting payments via chatbots and voice platforms is a tricky aspect to master. After a pleasant shopping experience (with conversational tools) and identifying the correct product, if a user is expected to go to another platform, or use their device, it may cancel out the seamless experience that led up to it.

Mobile wallets can be incorporated. It may be some time before this will become a seamless process but we may as well be ready.

Keep The Human Touch In The Picture

Although conversational ecommerce will fundamentally be driven by AI, machine learning and language processing you can never ignore human interaction.

Understanding how a customer decides allows you to provide them with the right information at the right time. Asking the right questions, in the right tone, engages customers and keeps them moving forward along the purchase journey.

Find out how you can bring the best of human to human interactions from the real world to the digital world.

Even in the online purchasing journey, if you are able to provide hand selected products you are at a tremendous advantage. To make the best conversational ecommerce experience, you need to blend technology and human elements. When businesses are ready to do what it takes to promote customer satisfaction, they will be able to thrive in the time of customer empowerment.

The post Conversational Ecommerce Is Where It’s At first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

Businesses reacted to the changing environment quickly although their customer experience strategy was often left behind.

The cold hard truth is that business needs to adapt to the ever-changing expectations of their customers. To not do so would mean an end to the business.

The goal is to deliver a customer experience that is of a high caliber yet is also empathetic.

1. Empathy Is At The Forefront

Customers show more care for brands that display care toward them. Empathy is a building block of trust. Your customer experience strategy will be far more compelling if you embrace empathy.

View the world from your customer’s point of view. What are they going through? What might some of their challenges be on a daily basis? Can you identify what they are feeling?

A recent study has shown that 59% of customers believe that businesses have lost the human touch.

This is due to too much technology.

Placing an emphasis on empathy can infuse a more human element into your business’ strategy toward technology. It has the beneficial byproduct of enhancing your customer experience strategy.

2. Make Use Of Stakeholder Mapping

Stakeholder mapping allows you to identify the groups that are critical to your customer experience strategy. The entire company impacts your customer’s experience.

Identify the departments that have an interaction with your customers. That might be marketing, sales and billing.

Then, consider the interests that the stakeholders have.

Your staff dictate the customer service that your customers receive.

3. Reach Your Target Audience

Identifying your target audience is a crucial first step.

Communication is an integral part of a customer experience strategy. Empathy cultivates engagement. Chances are, your target audience is going to be genuine with their feedback.

To figure out customer needs, you need to isolate the channels that they utilize the most. Once you know this, you can modify your approach to suit them.

Coming to understand these channels can also provide insights about why they buy the products you offer.

Accurate information about your customer can aid your outreach and influence functional aspects. The customer experience should be the foundation for decisions in all functional areas.

4. Easy to Use Customer Service and Purchase Channels

In a global environment of stress and overwhelm, ensure it’s easy for your customers to deal with you. Your customer service should be optimized as an integral element of your customer experience strategy.

Stay one step ahead of your competitors by offering end to end customer service support. By placing emphasis on online support, you are showing your customers that you care about their experience.

Do you make use of a chat bot? If not, you should consider implementing one to provide 24/7 support to customers when they need it.

Consider, also, the purchasing channels of your customers. Make it easy, rather than difficult, for customers to give you their money.

People have so many things competing for their attention. Make sure that your prices are current and that your website has accurate information about packaging.

Convenience counts for a lot in terms of enhancing the customer experience.

5. Digital Personalization

Gather information through the relationship with your customer. It allows you to provide more insightful support from a future perspective. You can provide helpful and relevant recommendations to your customer.

Personalization is a big coup for your business. It shows a dedication to providing a more enhanced style of support to your customers.

Use all channels to collate data about your customer. A shared inbox could benefit your customer service department. This would be useful in recovering previous requests from a certain user. The information provides for contextual communication and outreach.

6. Focus On Simplicity & Ease Of Use

Most of us have used a website that was diabolical to navigate on a mobile phone.

The use of devices continues to expand and responsive optimization should be a significant priority for your business.

Ensure your target audience has a seamless and simple experience using your site. Navigation should be simple for any types of browser.

Your site should be convenient to use. A user shouldn’t have to use a desktop because of slow loading speeds or design faux pas. Common purchasing questions should have easy-to-find answers and product information should be easy to find.

7. Use Automation and AI

Covid has completely changed the way that global business works. Demand for digital presence and online customer services has skyrocketed.

Businesses need to retain the personal touch that they would typically offer customers but to carry this off on the web requires a certain investment in automation. Doing so can keep the quality of your customer service high.

AI and automation addons serve to enhance the customer experience and offer convenience for your customer service personnel.

Online assistants have the effect of automating experiences and they also optimize the path to purchase.

Leverage AI through an omnichannel approach for a seamless and integrated experience – even if using various platforms including desktop to mobile or social media to live customer support.

The accelerated uptake of digital ecommerce adoption can often be dizzying for business.

Though, an empathy-led approach is sure to enhance your customer strategy in 2021. Investing in technology that aims to replicate the digital human touch will be of tremendous benefit to businesses in the current climate.

The post Your Customer Experience Strategy In 2021 first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

These numbers show that commerce has an apparent engagement issue. So why is this the case?

Retailers & brands being resistant to change. Customers are inundated with products and messages in much the same way that they have been for years. There is a reason for this, though – it is difficult to scale personalised engagement. Many businesses simply do the same thing and the result of doing so becomes lowered consumer response rates. To be relevant to today’s consumer, businesses should avoid the product-push approach and instead move toward meaningful engagement at the times when consumers are actively wanting a product.

Myopic focus on traffic generation. The majority of a business’s budget usually gets spent on generating traffic to a website. There is an ingrained belief that the marketer’s job is done because a user has visited a site. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Consumers have endless choice at their fingertips – once they have visited your site, they will continue researching and evaluating their purchase before actually completing the sale. The focus, then, should be on optimising the traffic that has come through the site by way of genuine, relevant and helpful guidance and engagement.

Undervaluing the importance of human touch. Human elements such as personalisation, interactions, and assistance in the moment haven’t reduced in importance as a result of online shopping. They are just as important as ever and businesses should incorporate human touch into their digital funnels to minimise customer effort and guide them along their purchase path.

Remaining stagnant and adopting sluggish attitudes are no longer options in the retail environment. Machine learning and deep learning are more readily accessible and companies are able to create highly intelligent and more engaging interactions by:

• Having a two-way conversion in order to listen and comprehend actual needs, tastes and context;
• Blending technology with human skill and real-time assistance; and,
• Providing customers with what they actually want in that particular moment.

The need to bring these personal, direct experiences to the digital customer journey could not be more urgent. Intelligent AI systems, digital assistants and adaptive technologies are imperative for delivering experiences that make a customer feel heard and cared for.

Conversational ecommerce – the next phase of online shopping

Conversational ecommerce is not a new concept but it is fast emerging as the way that businesses bring 1-to-1 engagement into the online shopping experience. This is especially relevant in a post-covid world where businesses have needed to evolve and rely more heavily on online shopping.

Conversational ecommerce gives customers the direct, personalised support that they were used to before ecommerce captured the spotlight. It supports a consumer to become more engaged and likely to purchase.

What creates an effective conversational ecommerce experience?

1. Ask questions

If your goal is for a consumer to let down their guard, open up with their wants, and to release their fear of purchasing you’ll need to let down your own and become involved. It doesn’t matter what you are selling, people have a resistance to buying when they are being blatantly sold to. This is true even if they want to buy it. The key to getting that engagement with consumers is to ask questions. This paves the way for a conversation about why that particular customer came to your site today.

2. Asking the right kinds of questions

Conversational openers like “Can I help you?” or “Hi, I’m [a chatbot name]. How may I help you today?” need to be banished.

These questions are closed and only provide for yes or no answers. When money is in the picture, the answer is more likely to be “no”.

Questions that cultivate more meaningful engagement are those that:

• Are specific in detail and have a focused subject. Examples:
  – What type of phone do you have?
  – Are you after more memory or speed?
• Give consideration to context, in addition to intent. Examples:
  – What are you getting this device to do?
  – Who is going to be using this device?
• Allow customers to think about their unique wants. Examples:
  – Is this benefit more important or this benefit?
  – What are your concerns?

3. Including an element of psychology

Salespeople have a knack for improving their questions after every encounter with a customer. They learn to identify behaviour cues, comprehend context, and use previous experience combined with elementary psychology to guide how they direct future conversations with consumers.

Through the use of AI and machine learning, businesses are in a position where they can replicate these customer experiences via digital channels.

McKenzie & Willis, for example, use a bed assistant that asks questions and helps people find the right bed based on their answers. Tait Communications offer a ‘Build your own radio” tool which helps consumers identify what radio best suits their requirements. ProtectCrete‘s concrete treatment assistant guides a user through questions to hone in on what treatment option will deliver their project outcomes.

Want to see more examples? Check out this selection of Shop Assistant digital sales assistants.

The post Conversational Ecommerce & The Power Of Asking Questions first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

When going thru this process you should ask yourself the following questions.

What is the value of the product.
Generally speaking the price of the product should be of high enough value that the customer is happy to invest time in the selection process.  This could be $150 for some. As well as having a minimum product value, there are some products that are of such a high value that a relationship with the seller is required to scope out the customers requirements.

What is the cost of selecting the wrong product.
Selecting the wrong product impacts both the customer and the supplier. From a customer perspective there is the sheer annoyance of wasting both time and money which isn’t ideal. From a supplier perspective there is a cost in the shape of returns and lost credibility.

For suppliers, monitoring your returns is a good way of measuring deficiencies in your selling process, whether this is online or in store.

How technical is the product
The more technical the product the more valuable guided selling can be. With technical products customers won’t be familiar with the terminology used and the benefits associated with the technical specs. If you’re using an attribute picker and the picker has some technical questions then this should be replaced with a guided selling interface.

What is the purchase cycle for the product
If the purchase cycle of your product is irregular then the chances are that the customer isn’t knowledgeable about the product. If it’s a regular purchase the customer should have sufficient knowledge to select the correct product.

Is your product an emotive purchase filling want more than need?
When thinking of products that have an emotive element to their consumption, think fashion. I buy it because I like it. No need to engage the site users in a guided selling manner here. What is useful in this instance is an attribute picker. I am after a green floral shirt…please show me what you have.

Here goes a brief list of product categories that would benefit from Guided selling…
Adhesives, Beds, Cameras, Camping equipment, Home Appliances, Fasteners, Financial services, Fitness equipment, Outdoor tools and machinery, Power tools, Printers and Office equipment,  Sports Equipment,  Insurance, Skin care..to name but a few.

And if none of the above makes any sense then the acid test is…if you went into a physical store and needed to engage with a salesperson to select the correct product…then Guided Selling is appropriate for your product category.

The post Guided selling…Is it right for your product category first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

Sure, e-commerce is growing in popularity, but US Census Bureau stats from the third quarter of 2016 show e-commerce sales only account for 7.7 percent of total retail sales in the USA. That’s hardly competition for offline.

In fact many online stores have started up retail outlets, including the biggest of them all Amazon.com, hoping to put the focus on selected products, add the human-touch back into shopping and stand out from the online crowd.

And it’s pretty clear people still go crazy for Black Friday and Boxing Day sales, when they could easily have done their shopping online and avoided the punch-ups!

Why is this? Why do people still prefer to shop in a physical store?

The difference is offline still provides a better quality experience. When someone walks into a shop they are 400% more likely to buy something than when they arrive on a website. Not only are they more likely to buy, they are also more likely to feel happy with their purchase, generally because a shop assistant has helped them pick the best product for them.

This means most e-commerce stores just don’t deliver the level of experience or satisfaction that a physical store can. Some items can be easily bought online but other things need someone to help the customer choose and make them feel like they’ve made the right decision at the same time.

E-commerce stores sure try to provide a better experience. But offering what they call “personalised selling”, showing you options based on your previous buying habits and history completely misses the point when you’re shopping for that difficult aunty or favourite nephew. Asking for help from someone who knows the stock and how to match that with a real person is more-than-often a better way.

So, is there a way to do this online?

There sure is. By helping the customer interact with your product catalogue in a more intuitive way than simple searches, customers will not only be more likely to buy, they will feel more satisfied with their purchase, and be more likely to come back. This is called getting better quality conversions.

There are a number of ways to do this, from live chat to using social media, but the more cost effective bang-for-buck technique is guided selling.

Guided selling takes the customer through a cleverly thought-out, interactive pathway where the result is the best choice for the customer. It’s very cost-effective per sale but usually costs a fair bit to implement in software development.

Not any more. By using Shop Assistant Create, you can improve your conversion rates and sell online like you’ve never done before. Check out this improvement in conversion rate and average sale from a well-known Australasian appliance retailer using Shop Assistant guided selling for just one product category.

Evidence from their Google Analytics above shows them getting 113.8% better e-commerce conversions than the average for the whole website. Better than organic or paid search or any other method of bringing customers to the site. And they are getting higher average order value too.

Guided selling can make a huge difference to your online sales. Find out more here…

The post How to fix poor e-commerce conversion rates first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

For most stores however the shop assistant is there to do just that. ASSIST. To direct the customer to the product that is suitable for them and to make the sale. Sales don’t just happen. The sales process requires a degree of engagement from the Sales person. This engagement starts with a greeting to develop rapport, following this the shop assistant will ask the customer what product type that they are after and ask questions around usage habits and skill levels. From this knowledge the shop Assistant can recommend the product most suitable to the customer. Assuming that the customer feels comfortable with the shop Assistants recommendation, the sale is made.

Think back to the last time you walked into a hardware store, like Bunnings. Seldom do you walk in to the correct isle and grab exactly what you’re after…unless of course you’re buying something that you’re familiar with or you underestimated the quantity required on the first trip.

More often than not you’ll find the aisle with the product category that you’re interested in and be overwhelmed with the selection available…at which point you gaze left and right for a shop assistant, that you promptly grab by the arm and brief them on your predicament of having no idea of what product is best for you.

In my instance I was after paint sprayer to make handy work of 70 metres of wooden pale fence, using an acrylic stain, and also had a shed to paint with acrylic paint at some stage, and am happy for mates to grab at some stage. Given these requirements I was pointed to a medium priced sprayer that was easy to maintain, that had a large reservoir and could be used for a variety of paints.

My requirements were ascertained and understood and a recommendation made…culminating in the sale, with no post purchase doubt/aggravation.

If it wasn’t for the shop assistant I would have bought the cheapest sprayer, being the only attribute that I could understand, and I would have cursed Bunnings every metre of fence, given that the cheapest sprayer wasn’t fit for purpose…my purpose.

If I had gone to an online store to buy the paint sprayer, it would have had a similar outcome as if no shop assistant had helped me at Bunnings. With me not buying a sprayer or buying the incorrect sprayer.

So if you’re happy with your customers not having a helping hand on your website, consider for a moment what would happen if you really trimmed expenses and got rid of your shop assistants. Surely your customers know exactly what they want? No?

Maybe I can help. Find out more about having an online shop assistant in this whitepaper or call us (0064) 3 377 8460.

Photo by Bogdanhoda, iStock.com

The post Shop Assistant…the guiding hand in creating a satisfied customer first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

Online guided selling tools are fast becoming mainstream. So much so that simply having one is no longer a competitive advantage. Knowing when and how to best use guided selling is the key to outperforming your competitors.

Guided selling is a dialogue in which shoppers are asked what their requirements are, and a product is recommended to them. It works best when you want to educate shoppers on a complex product or service to help them make a purchase decision. It’s great where customers are unlikely to have a clear preference in mind beforehand – and is unnecessary for simple purchases.

A good guided selling tool needs to immediately engage a customer, and build a relationship, just as a sales assistant would. For best results, your guided selling system will:

Solve a problem for the customer. Design your questions to find and fill a need. If your questions are designed to promote less relevant features or products or for covert market research, your shopper will smell a rat.

• Engage your customer quickly. It takes less than 15 seconds for your page visitor to decide to stay or leave. Show from the outset that you will guide them through the sale at every step, and make it easy – just as a salesperson would do.
• Establish a rapport – ask the right questions, in the right language. Explain why the recommended product was chosen. It’s reassuring and helps customers feel confirmed that the decision is the right one.
• Unlock inventory. Guided selling is an educational approach. It’s okay to make your shopper aware of a huge product range, but don’t show them irrelevant things, and reassure them that you’ll whittle down the selection to find exactly what they need.
• Avoid introducing an attribute picker, or a filter. They’re for people who know what they need. Guided Selling is for people who don’t yet know, and want to learn more.
• Recognise that omni-channel shopping is a key to the future. Customers research and choose products in a combination of online and in-store decisions – and on their smartphones while they’re in the store – which is old news by now, but it does mean that your guided selling programme should be mobile-friendly and must integrate seamlessly into your website.
• Be human. This is often the hardest one to get right, but is crucial. Your guided selling system should have a human touch; it must be personable and real – just like a good salesperson.

To wrap up: when you add a guided selling system, make sure that you don’t settle for just another widget. You should, in fact, be adding a personable salesperson to your website.

Guided selling pioneers such as Wired Internet Group have the experience and expertise to guide your web team towards best-practice guided selling with a human touch, plus optimising and measuring its effectiveness. While you have the knowledge to ask the right questions, speaking to an expert will help you trounce your competition.

Try a Live Shop Assistant Demo

Photo by Sara Carter.

The post How to design a successful guided selling experience first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

As shoppers, we all respond differently to different salespeople, from wanting to open our wallets, to wanting to bolt for the door.

That is because both shoppers and salespeople are somewhere on the continuum of extrovert to introvert. We range from being outgoing and talkative to withdrawn and reflective, and anywhere in between.

The classic salesperson is charming and persuasive, imparting knowledge while being super-bubbly. An extrovert. This person definitely has sales strengths. (Although shy shoppers may feel uncomfortable with this person.)

Introverts would seem to be on the back foot, maybe even hiding behind the counter. However, marketing research is increasingly showing that while introverts find approaching customers more challenging, they tend to be better at generating trust. They ask about a customer’s needs, and take the time to listen and understand.

There is also a recently discovered, but remarkably numerous species: the ambivert. Neither introverted nor an extrovert, but displaying features of both, the ambivert salesperson provides a warm greeting, a friendly face, good knowledge, and great listening skills.

So what does that mean if you are wanting to sell goods online? Particularly, goods that need a human touch when being sold?

Shop Assistant is designed to be the perfect ambivert. It is warm and friendly, and asks the right questions before recommending the perfect product. At the end of the process, customers feel they are understood. That’s really important in choosing or recommending a specialist product.

As the saying goes, you have two ears and one mouth — and it pays to use them in that proportion.

Try a Live Shop Assistant Demo

Photo by hotblack.

The post Sales, personality, and ditching the stereotype first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

What manufacturers do best: designing great products. What retailers do best: selling those products to consumers. This three-way relationship has become an accepted norm, deemed to benefit each party.

While all appears well and good on the surface, the lack of contact between manufacturers and customers is a huge, often under-recognised problem.

With products assigned to retailers, manufacturers cede control, and are usually out of the loop sales-wise. They don’t hear the in-store purchasing questions or post-purchase niggles. Instead of being connected to their market, manufacturers are dependent on the quality of the retailers’ sales skills, knowledge, and feedback. If they’re not getting the full picture, they may not even know it.

We have forgotten that understanding customer needs is vital for sales, stock decisions, and product development. Without this understanding, manufacturers tend to build ever-higher specs in an effort to sell more units or, even worse, get sucked into price wars.

But more features or cutthroat prices don’t necessarily equate to more sales. Research on smartphones, for example, place simple things like durability and long battery life at the top of shoppers’ wish lists[1].

Manufacturers’ websites, their version of a shop floor, are often far from simple, with screeds of products and technical lingo. While modern consumers are happy to do online research, most do not understand industry-specific specifications and lack the experience to select the products that best fit their unique needs.

What’s needed? Connective Retailing, which brings manufacturers, retailers and customers closer to each other.

Manufacturers that weave the human touch of Connective Retailing into their websites find themselves able to ask questions and make recommendations, like a great salesperson would. Customers are better informed towards a buying decision. Manufacturers get feedback on responses via their website, and can use those to better align their products. The manufacturer may sell products at this point, or more commonly, simply assist with a buyer’s research leading up to a retail sale. Both manufacturers and retailers benefit.

But most importantly, Connective Retailing allows manufacturers to rediscover their most precious resource – their customers.

References

1. What Do Consumers Want In A New Smartphone?

Photo by Saranya Ghosh.

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