How to Create Amazing Shopping Experience with Marketing Automation

Do you work in eCommerce?

We wrote that ebook for ecommerce owners and marketers operating within that field. The size of your business doesn’t matter – tips and best practices discussed below apply to SMB as well as to large companies. All you need is a strong conviction that customer experience is a crucial element of your entrepreneurship, not a trivial additive or cool buzzword.

CEOs detached from customers

80% of CEOs claim that their company delivers the best shopping experience, while only 8% of customers share such enthusiasm. Shortly, CEO assess themselves much better that they are judged by actual customers. A big mistake.

Shopping experience as a final test

Shopping experience and act of shopping itself verifies your business model. No matter how much do you spend on marketing and advertising, how much traffic do you get, this is the final test. It can also endanger all the other actions. The best marketing campaign won’t do any good if your purchase procedure is unintuitive. Your profits depend on shopping experience.

Broad definition

In this ebook we apply broad definition of shopping experience, because we believe that perspective on communication with customer should be as large as possible. Taking into consideration wider spectrum will enable us to cover also less often discussed but still vital aspects of the problem and show you how to integrate all the elements into organic whole.

Maybe you will find it hard to believe, but eCommerce celebrates its 20 birthday. How did it begin, how will it develop?

In 1994 two important things happened:

Press started to cover a new trend – shopping in the internet. Articles describing the problem appeared in „Money”, „New York Times” and „Computerworld”,
Jeff Bezos established Amazon (a year later he sold the first book).

The beginnings of eCommerce

Buying in the internet in distant 1994 looked completely different.
Nobody advertised here,
Finding an online store was hard,
Some companies provided their catalogues on CDs, so it was easier for customers to find products and order them,
E-shopping was compared to teleshopping,
eCommerce featured New York Times’ „In&Out” and was called hot, next to Marlboro Man,
Customer needed to be educated on what modem is and how internet works,
Experts predicted that shopping will become more convenient and that prices will drop.

New Customer

The customer of your eCommerce doesn’t remind the lost and shy consumers from 1994. Connected, aware and ads -resistant, modern consumer requires different treatment.

Aware

The new customer above all is well-informed and knows his rights, what raises his/ her expectations high. Knows that strong competition benefits them in the end of the day.

Prosument

Thanks to easy and mobile access to information due to the internet, customer is well educated and becomes an expert in the area. He studies forums and blogs, compares various options, so when he meets a salesperson he wants a partner to discussion, who will appreciate his/her knowledge and answer advanced questions, not just mechanically deliver desired commodity.

Independent

After years of being bombarded with irrelevant, aggressive ads, customer learnt:

To oversee all ads (e.g. banner blindness),
Not to trust any marketing communication.

Therefore customers try to gather valuable information on their own instead of letting salespeople talk. They can be even 80% complete with the decision-making process before reaching out to salespeople. In the store they just want confirmation of the fact already decided and an expert advice if needed.

Experience oriented

Today’s customer doesn’t look at the product in isolation, but is interested in experience as a whole, from the features and usability of a product, to brand philosophy, to shopping process, to customer service to package. He cares not only about objective qualities and advantages of the product, but also for emotional aura surrounding the experience.

The Age of Customer

That’s why contemporary market is sometimes called „The Age of Customer”. It denotes a consumer-centred paradigm and entails the highest possible standard of
service. The shop should be simple, clear, intuitive and deliver complex experience.

Main Rules of Communication with New Consumer “A special product for a special consumer”. That effect you should try to achieve when designing a customer experience in general.

It can be broken down to 5 rules:

Send relevant messages:

your communication should deliver value for that specific customer, matching his interest and needs. It concerns not only offers but also educational materials.

React in Real Time:

instant is the new black. Real Time personalization and communication creates foundations of good shopping experience.

Deliver quality:

Quality over quantity is today’s customer mantra. He wants to believe that you offer a unique, high quality and one of his kind product. He will expect details on
materials and procedure and clear distinction: how are you different from other, from your competitors? Each moment of the experience should shout: „It’s not a mass production”!

Transparency:

prepare yourself for communication with a custimer who has done his research and can ask you about origins of the materials, your ecology standards, privacy politics. Educate your staff in that field so they can answer all questions.

Treat customers personally:

personalize your communication in every area possible (dynamic emails and banners, tailored offer and recommended products, copy, using customer’s name).

How to Create a Shopping Experience?

Experience is more than a purchase

What more does your customer get?

1. Community: sense of belonging.

2. Knowledge: when brand helps us understand the problem, we perceive it as an expert with educational mission, caring for more than just selling their product. It
builds trust and loyalty.

3. Uniqueness: when we get from a purchase more than a product, but also emotional benefits as sense of being treated in an individual way and served as a VIP. Contemporary customer is allergic to bulk messages and searches individual contact and dedicated service.

4. Values: brand philosophy is being reflected in every, even the tiny details and that’s why customers – sometimes even unknowingly to themselves – are so sensitive to any incongruences. Colors, design, usability, copy, solutions like a wishlist – they all carry a message about brand’s.

Subjectivity trouble

Shopping experience is 70% subjective: it consists of individual’s feelings and impressions on how s/he is being treated. It’s about emotions that shopping brings: excitement, boredom, surprise, misunderstanding.

Buying at your store is always an experience – even if you don’t manage it deliberately. But it can be a negative or bland. Your point is to create shopping experience skillfully and planning all its elements so its provides positive and memorable sentiment.

What defines an excellent experience?

What is most important to the customers?
What defines an excellent experience?

Qualities of Perfect shopping experience:

Memorable,
Cohesive with brand communication,
Smooth, flowing, uninterrupted,
Charged with strong positive emotions,
Encouraging loyalty.

How to create it?

Factors shaping the experience:

Website design,
Usability,
Rules of automation implemented,
Content and images,
Customer service,
Procedures (terms, privacy policy, returns).

Synergy

As you see, creating amazing shopping experience requires coordinating many small elements and effective cooperation between various departments of your company. Therefore you must ensure good communication within the firm, existence of common ground. It can be provided by CRM and/or Marketing Automation Platform, and tools like Buyer Persona and Buyer’s Journey.

Human factor

Personal contact plays a huge role in building customer – brand relationship. It includes not only personal, face-to-face contact, but also chat, call centre or email correspondence.

78% od customers declare that a competent member of the staff is responsible for the experience. We perceive brands as if they were real people, we associate them with human features. We also perceive employees like brand incarnated, so contact with them is a test of brand personality and our relationship with it. Encounter verifies our assumptions. For example: if brand describes itself as very customer-friendly and suddenly you meet a brusque assistant, it belies your faith in brand’s credibility, in its values. You feel frisked.

The lesson? Invest in your team!

Negative shopping experience

Knowing what customers love, let’s take a look at the dark side.

What would scare them off?

When customer feels like a number: think of emails subject reading: „Order no. 89803859470373 has been shipped”. Snippy, mechanic-sounding language puts user off – both in direct communication and on the website. Nobody wants to be another order for some anonymous, abstract selling – machine.
Insecurity: It can be caused by insufficient information, ambiguities, difficulties in finding contact data, confusing terms.
Problems with finding the product: Browsing products in vain can bring frustration about. That’s why you should care not only for clarity and organization of your items, but also for linking. Be sure that your banner with specific products links to the place where it can be found. And please stop linking to your homepage.
Feeling lost: When users finds himself in a place where he doesn’t know what to do next, he’ll simply hit the „x” button. Map your user journey so you learn how he navigates to reduce the risk of such situations.

Customers don’t complain (to you)

Only 1 in 27 dissatisfied customers will communicate their discontent to the brand, The rest simply thinks „No big deal, I won’t buy there again”. Have that number in mind when feeling too optimistic about your customers’ happiness.

Customers complain to others

54% of customers share their negative shopping experiences with more than 5 people, while only 33%share positive experiences with the same amount of people.

Handling failure

Remember: failures occur!

32% of customers encounter a problem with purchased product; it’s natural and can happen. What you do afterwards matter.

70% of consumers declare that they would still buy from the provider who would deal with the issue quickly. That’s why you need to pay special attention to your problem solving procedures and terms of returns. Are they reasonable and friendly?

Ensure also some space to handle issues for your employees at the first frontier, so the problems can be dealt with as quickly as possible. Empowered employees will be more efficient.

Blessing of failure

Returning a product or act of complaining might turn into positive experience, because they offer an opportunity for a brand to show its human, caring face. If you can respond to the crisis with being open, friendly and kindhearted, you can actually make customer more attached.

6 Tips from eCommerce Gurus

Devil is in the detail. Excellent shopping experience comes from paying attention to details: from shape, color and location of every button to terms of shipping and package design.
Cohesion. Shopping experience can tie us to the brand and grow loyalty because it consistently communicates coherent message and values, so they stick. If each element serves that purpose, the communication is clear and smooth, hence brand ideas affect us deeply.
Simplicity. Take heart from the imperative: „Don’t make me think”. If you can reduce a crossroad in buyer’s journey, a situation when s/he needs to choose, reduce.
Personalize. Individual approach distinguishes an experience from just a purchase. Using customer’s name, preferences remembered, relevant recommendations, dynamic content – apply as many tools as possible to make shopping personal.
Understanding. Designing shopping experience makes sense only when based on deep understanding of customer behavior. It takes a lot of work with deciphering users’ Digital Body Language, surveys, interviews and analytics.
Test. Optimization can’t be achieved purely on conceptual level – you must see how actual users react to these. Use A/B testing on regular basis: don’t assume that you know what your recipients need. Ask them!

Why Do You Need Marketing Automation?

To create amazing shopping experience Marketing Automation Platform is vital. Why?

Marketing Automation is about being a good listener. It delivers tools for responding to customer behavior, so more of your actions are actually reactions to
user behavior. You communicate, engage in a dialogue, not conduct a monologue. That’s exactly what new customer needs: somebody he can talk to, who listens, not just overwhelms him with chaotic bulk messages. By responding to customer’s action, not imposing your own, you respect his autonomy.
Most advanced analytics. It will help you understand your customers better – individuals as well as the whole group. Solutions for education. Who said that
Lead Nurturing is only for B2B? More and more e-stores involve their customers in education programs, so they know more about the value of product before the purchase. Learning about impact of ecological food on health or quality or materials or fair trade makes customers more aware. When they know exactly what they’re paying for, they’re more willing to.
Working tools for personalization. Personalization is a big word, but how do you actually deliver it in eCommerce? You need a dedicated software. Marketing
Automation means real 1-to-1 communication, based on interest and behavior of specific user. No other tool can compare to individual approach MAP provides.
CRM. Marketing Automation Platform gathers all information about your contacts and integrates it in one place, so all your departments can share knowledge and have quick access to data needed in a moment (e.g. when frustrated customers calls, information on his behavior, preferences and purchase history could
help spot a problem or choose the most suitable compensation).
Ensures coherency and completeness of experience at every stage. Marketing Automation will make your experience smooth because it treats relationship with
customer as a process – collected data on individual user enables you to build cohesive experience.

Before the Purchase

When user browses your products, take care for offer personalization and dynamic recommendations, so he can find interesting items as quickly as possible. Product presentation also matters.

Say „Hello”

Good practice: When you enter brick and mortar store, salesperson says „Hi”, calling you with your name maybe. Find space in your e-store to mimic that
practice, both on the website (maybe put „Hi, <name>!” on user login bar?) and in emails .
Why it works: Because it makes customer feel noticed and announces personal contact. Yet beware of false personalization: when one overuses customers name and data or phrases like „Only for you”, but it doesn’t entail real value and tailored offer and content. If you follow pseudo-personal copy with bulk message, it just makes you look fake.

More than image

Good practice: Instead of traditional, boring photo use video or 360 degrees view to present the product. You can also involve user generated photos or
virtual fitting rooms. Include music. While being creative remember to give all the data needed to make a decision.
Why it works: Because it allows to visualize the product better, offers advantages of brick and mortar shop (so it shortens the process, while user might consider checking the product in reality), is more engaging and applies to more senses.

Fitting rooms – out of the box

Good practice: If you want to order eyewear at Warby Parker, they will send you by courier a box with no more than 6 pairs for you to try. You can decide whether you want to buy one of them or not. You have time to make your decision.
Why it works: Customers want to be sure that they spend money well. Then they can buy with pleasure, without sense of guilt. The need of trying an item grows proportially to product’s price: the more expensive item, the less likely customer are to take risk. So put yourself in customer shoes and don’t expect them to buy when not having enough data!

Before the Purchase

Wishlist: use it to personalization

Good Practice: Give customers a possibility of collecting items they like but can’t buy right now. It’s useful both to the user and to you!
Why it works: Wishlist makes shopping easier. Searching always consumes time, so having the products chosen and found before makes a way to the cart much shorter. Moreover wishlist provides you a valuable knowledge on user’s interests and needs. Use it in communication (offer the commodity from the list and ones associated with it; notify user if that item gets discounted, deliver content concerning that particular product). Messages offering a product already watched/ added to wishlist/ added to cart are the most effective ones, so don’t neglect dynamic banners and emails .

Consider also option of public wishlists: that way users can let their friends know what they want for present. It helps users and gives natural opportunity for them to talk about your e-store („If you want to buy me a present, go to…”). Inspire word of mouth marketing!

On-site recommendations

Good Practice: Use dynamic 1-to-1 recommendations on the website (e.g. in form of banners).
Why it works: It simplifies the browsing process and recreates offline store experience, where kind assistant who knows us helps find a needed product. User feels recognized and his trust in the brand increases. It’s especially important when you have a wide array of products to offer.

Flexible price shaping

Good Practice: Be flexible when price shaping and watch carefully how your customers use the product. Maybe subscription model would work better?
Take an example of Dollar Shave Club: they offer razors delivered monthly. You decide what price and quality are satisfactory for you and get your razors delivered monthly. No more sad mornings when you realize that your razor is dull!
Why it works: One, sometimes the clou is not the product, but delivery or pricing. Two, customers are getting more and more empowered, so they want also to have impact on price shaping. Be open to their suggestions.

Change your approach to banners!

Banners changed weekly? Most users don’t even notice them. If banner doesn’t concern their interests and problems, they won’t pay attention – no matter how pretty it might be. That’s why you should invest your time to create complimentary dynamic banners – apart of your regular ones. Banners tailored to individual user
will not only catch eye, but also be more memorable.

Before the Purchase

Make browsing easy

Good Practice: Clean and declutter your catalogue. Is it simple and friendly? Aren’t too many products associated with one category? Apart from categories, use also tags to make it simpler. Put the search box in the same place on every subpage, so user will intuitively find a place to type if wanting to change search terms.
Why it works: In the e-store there is no human assistant to help. With broad offer helpless customer will quickly get discouraged.

Livechat

Good Practice: Put a livechat box on the website, so your user can contact a staff member.
Why it works: There’re plenty of questions users might want to ask, so deliver them as many contact options as possible, so each one can choose the best option for himself. Also the presence of livechat box denotes the presence of real person, what makes many users feel more secure.

During the Purchase

At the stage of purchase, you should have just one rule in mind: Ockham’s Razor. Do not multiply entities beyond necessity. Simplify. Reduce. Be familiar.

Purchase Without Account

Good Practice: Don’t make users go back! If they have loaded they cart full and can’t wait to give you their money and you interrupt the process and force them to log in, and to register before that… is it really necessary?
Why it works: Reducing the steps user has to do always benefits. If user hasn’t registered, you can still send an email explaining benefits of having an account. Later. Now focus on purchase.

Familiar carts

Good Practice: Shopping cart is the only place in your e-store where you shouldn’t experiment with copy, color or button shape or positions. Cart should be boring and familiar.
Why it works: When paying customer wants sense of security – in the end, it’s about his money. It comes from recognizing known, easy to understand solutions.

Terms of returns

Good Practice: Liberal terms will benefit your business. If user gets a warranty or can return a commodity without consequences, expose that information,
even if it’s just the requirement of the law, not your own invention.
Why it works: When user learns about the possibility of no-consequence return, you remove one of the most crucial shopping obstacles („What if I won’t like it?”) and show that you focus on customer.

Abandoned carts

Good Practice: emails reminding of unfinished order or abandoned cart will surprise you with their efficiency. Automate them and take care for copy. E.g. eBay warns: „Don’t miss out! You’ve left something in your cart”, refering to fear of missing something important. Make sure the text matches brand’s character.
Why it works: User probably wanted to buy that item – simply something interrupted the process. Use his readiness and conviction to buy the chosen product instead of overwhelming him with bulk messages with irrelevant offer.

Mobile

Good Practice: Your e-store should not only be prepared for mobile shopping, but also offer multichannel experience.
Why it works: M-commerce is now 24% of eCommerce and it will grow. Remember user’s preferences. If he added to carts a pair of trousers, recommend him a t-shirt in the same size.

During the Purchase

Online-offline synergy

Good Practice: Do you have also a traditional brick-and-mortar store? Ensure good communication between them: coupons given in physical store for e-shopping and the other way round. Also both shops should be designed in similar way. Use mobile app and beacon to deliver location-based experience. Collect data about user’s behavior and purchase in traditional store and integrate it with your Marketing Automation Platform.
Why it works: It helps handle online-offline gap (showrooming, ROPO effect) and delivers more knowledge about how user migrate between online and offline stores.

Smart packages

Good Practice: Design a package to make unboxing intuitive and convenient. And use it in communication: the space of the package can be used to deliver tips, interesting facts, a story. Don’t waste space.
Why it works: Unpacking can resemble unboxing a present. Try to evoke such emotions.

After the Purchase

Hey, your work isn’t over after the purchase! Now you try to transform a customer into loyal and happy brand ambassador. Ask how the product works. Can you be of any more assistance?

Transactional emails

Good Practice: Transactional emails (e.g. with payment confirmation or shipping status) don’t have to be boring and bland. Spring them with useful
information or an offer. Detailed instruction can be found here.
Why it works: Transactional emails are opened 3 times more often compared to traditional newsletters. Users wait for them and pay attention.

Ask for opinion

Good Practice: Do you realize the power of customers’ reviews? After purchase send an email asking for opinion in exchange for small discount.
Why it works: You show that you care about what customers think. You build a valuable base of reviews (users trust opinions of other users more
than producer’s description). You establish a community. You engage user more. Do you need more reasons?

Educational post-sales emails

Good Practice: After purchase send an educational email including tips, link to relevant content on your website, leave contact data. What could make his
experience better? What beginning user should know?
Why it works: It improves using experience, builds positive associations (you show that you care) and helps.