The e-Comm Minute™
By: Jose Antonio Torres Moreno
What can be so special and unexpected for your online shoppers that when they receive the package of their most recent purchase, they receive a gift that they did not expect and that generates a connection with the product or brand that comes from their deepest being?
Today I want to share with you some of my experience of several years in Electronic Commerce summarized in Five key points to achieve it.
- Always deliver faster than you promise.
One of the great successes of Amazon and Mercadolibre in recent years is that they have invested a lot of money in fulfillment centers and their own fleet for last-mile delivery. This has allowed them to achieve very low delivery times compared to all other sites, and their main motivation has been, the importance of this process for customers to buy again and become advocates of the brand.
Delivering faster than promised is the main factor to achieve the WOW effect, since one of the most emotional moments in online sales is when the package arrives with its owner and if we manage to deliver it earlier than expected, it will turn into a magical moment.
One of the recommendations that I make is to work hard in your warehouse where the product is prepared and sent to your client and if you are not sure that you can achieve this effect, I highly recommend sending your product to Fulfillment Centers specialized in e-commerce, in Mexico is: Amazon FBA, FULL de Mercadolibre, these centers guarantee that the delivery time will be the lowest you can find since all their processes are focused on optimizing the delivery process, achieving even deliver the same day the customer placed his order.
- Make receiving your product like receiving a gift.
To achieve this effect, you must work a lot on the experience that your client lives when opening the box where your product comes, depending on what your product is, verify that it arrives in perfect condition, in the footwear sector there is not so much problem, since normally the boxes are made to measure and the product arrives in perfect condition, but when you send clothes, accessories or jewelry, you have to make sure that the product does not arrive very wrinkled, crushed or even deformed.
It is important to review the safety and protection material that you will add to the box so that you are completely sure that it arrives safely. For this process you can use polyethylene sheets (1), bubble wrap (2), inflatable bags (3), moldable foam (4), kraft paper (5), corrugated cardboard (6), polystyrene filling (7), packaging modular (8) or angular corners (9). You should not seek to save in this process as it is an important part of the delivery of your product.
- Send an unexpected gift at the checkout.
Success in the WOW effect is to be able to surprise the customer with things that he is not expecting, and adding an extra gift in the package you send can achieve it very well, of course giving an extra product has the greatest effect but cannot always be affordable.
For these cases, I leave you some ideas that have worked well with Lievant’s clients:
- Handwritten greeting card by owner, designer and craftsman.
- Gifts from other providers such as movie tickets, a month of Netflix or Spotify.
- An exclusive discount for the next purchase. BEWARE it is not a general discount; this works more if it is handled as an exclusive discount.
- A card with recommendations for using the product, be careful not to instruct, if not something faster and easier to understand, which can even bring a QR code that leads to a video.
- A bag of sweets, no matter what type of product you sell, always a chocolate or a small bag of sweets will generate a WOW effect, do not forget to place a small card next to it.
- Create a true problem-solving team for your clients.
An activity that is often underestimated in e-commerce is customer service, normally this task is left to a Community Manager or sometimes to the same person who manages the warehouse and although this is not bad at all, it is best to have a team focused 100% on the attention and resolution of doubts and problems for the client.
It is proven that good customer service can considerably increase the closing of sales (conversion ratio) and the buyback. It is always going to be much cheaper to invest in customer service teams than in advertising to generate new customers.
This team must have the objective of solving all the doubts and problems of the client in the fastest time possible and must offer all possible channels so that the client can contact you. Here I share some of the essential channels for your online store.
- Clear terms of sale throughout the site: You must always have the general conditions of the sale visible to the customer, for example: shipping cost, shipping coverage, promotion of the month, conditions for returns or exchanges, etc.
- Frequently asked questions site: You must have in view of the client a section of frequently asked questions, where you gather all the questions that your client could ask, such as: delivery times, used packages, times for returns, etc. I share with you the example of the ZAPPOS Frequently Asked Questions site.
- Fixed telephone visible on site: You must visibly have a phone where the customer can dial to follow up on their order. I share again the example of the ZAPPOS site.
- Live chat: A live chat on your site can help considerably to reduce phone calls and can encourage many of your customers to write to you with their questions about their purchase. A good option may be ZENDESK.
- WhatsApp: Many sites prefer WhatsApp to Live Chat, I particularly prefer both since the idea is to give all the options to the client so that they can contact you. If your customer service team is large, I recommend using a WhatsApp CRM so that several agents can attend the same number, a tool that can help you is COMMBOX.
Once you have the media active, you must work a lot with your customer service team so that they really have a culture of problem solving and not just dealing with complaints. You must measure them by the solved problems and it is highly recommended that you ask your customers if your customer service team solved their problem. At this point I highly recommend reading the book Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh
- The product that the customer receives must exceed expectations.
It is very important that you do not lose sight of the fact that no matter how hard we work on delivery time, packaging, customer service and surprise effects, if the product you send does not meet expectations, all the WOW effect will be lost. This does not mean that we have to substantially improve the quality of the product, but rather we must control the expectations that the customer has about the product they are going to receive and for this I leave you some tips:
- Real photos that show details: It is important that you include many photos in your online store or marketplace channel and that these photos show in the best way the product that you are going to receive. Sometimes trying to sell, they put enhanced photos of a product that is not the best quality, with this the only thing we achieve is to make a sale but we lose a customer.
- All technical information: It is important not to leave anything saved and put all the product information on the site, regardless of whether your product is a pair of shoes or a calculator, you must specify sizes, materials, weight, details and all the characteristics that allows the client to compare and make the decision.
- Clear description of functionalities: In the product description you should try to explain as clearly as possible the use that the customer can give it and try not to lie or make certain functionalities bigger.
- Product videos: Something that is not very common but it is highly recommended so that the customer can clearly see the product they are going to receive is to show them real videos of the product.
- Customer comments: Another recommendation is that real client recommendations are added to the site and if possible, a ranking to generate more trust with new clients.
- Conditions and guarantee: In any type of product, it is very important that you include the conditions in which the customer will receive it and the times in which a guarantee could apply.
Exceeding the expectation of the product that the client supposes to receive is one of the most difficult processes since it involves asking ourselves if we are delivering a good product to the client, but being realistic if we use all this information for something positive it will give us invaluable data to improve our products or select better providers.
Finally, I am a strong believer on what Tony Hseih said, “People may not remember exactly what you did or what you said, but they always remember how you made them feel, that’s the most important thing” –
We would like to hear from you. Join the conversation at The e-Comm. Minute ™ by sending your comments or topics that you would be interested us addressing in future articles to: [email protected],
or call us at: +1 (716) 225-2920.
[email protected] or call us at: (716) 225-2920
Francisco A. Arinci
Head of Digital Strategy
Lievant US – www.lievant.us
