What is #CustomerExperience?

I recently attended a TIE-SIG event on Supply Chain challenges for E commerce in India. After a brisk discussion on the different inventory models that companies were experimenting with, the panelists veered into "customer experience" and stated this was the number 1 thing that companies need to focus on in order to keep customers happy. Well, that's a no-brainer, I thought. While mature and cash-rich startups seem quite happy doling out the goodies (COD, free shipping, no-questions-asked free returns and exchanges..the list goes on) in the hope of keeping customers coming back, the jury is out whether e-commerce companies are looked at more favorably when compared to their brick and mortar and traditional peers and competitors.  And more importantly, this definitely has not helped these fledgling startups to anywhere close to profitability.  In fact, one exec, who apparently works for one of those cash-rich startups, went on to declare that they are "not worried about costs at all" and all that mattered to them, at this juncture, was whether they gained satisfied customers or not. The statement made one of the just-out-of-college-disheveled-hair-startup-guy in the audience, just shudder in his sandblasted-jeans. 

I couldn't help going back to a recent personal experience on an apparel e commerce website, which shall remain unnamed to protect the innocent. Anyway, I was looking to buy a casual shirt for a wedding and after browsing thru a few sites, I decided to buy one from this particular site. The UI  was nice, navigating was simple, I chose the size that I normally buy (and I normally buy from a well known Indian brand), hopped over to payments, whipped out my credit card, used my Secure-3D password (I wonder why its called a 3D password?) and was even surprised by an additional 5% discount I was offered as a reward for using my CC. I was done. Cool! So far so good until the eagerly awaited package arrived at my doorstep. I tried the shirt on and found that fit was not right even though the shirt size was my normal size. No problem - I just called them to exchange the shirt for a different size. No questions asked. A courier guy came once to take the shirt back and another one showed up a couple of days later with the new shirt and while all this was happening, the wedding had taken place and the couple had taken off on their honeymoon. While I would still say that my overall customer experience was allright, the fact that I did not get the right shirt in time, was a big disappointment. And in this specific instance, the website could have completely avoided the situation by simply educating me on picking the right size according to their fit/style, which differs from the well known national brand. But companies that really understand their consumers buying behavior and requirements, handle this aspect of customer experience well. Take for example, a leading provider of maternity apparel and accessories which provides a detailed information to prospective buyers to ensure they are buying the right size and fit. They even do a follow-up call to the customer to make sure the order is "in order"! And they are one of the few sites that do not offer COD. But the results are not surprising. Highly satisfied customers, negligible returns, profitable company. 

Given that Indians are the most abusive customers in the world - hey, DKTM. just look at this survey

http://forbesindia.com/article/world-watch/indians-are-the-most-abusive-customers-in-the-world/33026/1

Customer experience is not just about having a snazzy website or offering COD or honoring exchanges. Its also about ensuring the consumer precisely get what they are looking for in the first place. Its about making the purchase decision easier for the customer. Its ultimately about providing a differentiated customer experience without breaking the bank, which is easier said than done. Who said running a business is easy?

Referrals or Intent? Or Both? What's more important in #socialmarketing? #twt

Let's take a look at 2 interesting social marketing solutions, @LocalResponse and @Extole. Both have seemingly different approaches to social marketing and interestingly, their approaches are centred around 2 of the largest social networks at the moment.

LocalResponse boasts of marquee clients such as Coca-Cola, Pizza Hut, Walgreens and McDonalds. The basic premise is that when consumers tweet about something, their DirectResponse platform analyzes the tweet to figure out the intention in the tweet. Let's say, you tweet to your friends that you are starving and want to grab a bite, you could potentially get a coupon from Pizza Hut. Brands could also encourage their customers to check-in from a particular store location which will elicit a response from the store with a promotion or offer relevant to that specific store location. LocalReponse is Twitter-centric and is not clear how their solution would work with other social networks.

Extole, on the other hand, is Facebook-centric. Their platform is designed to take advantage of the nearly billion people already on FB. They pretty much ride on FB's Open Graph and focus on social referrals, expressions and promotions, but they do track referrals thru Twitter as well. The intent is to amplify the views of brand advocates and thus drive word of mouth marketing - socially. This hopefully leads to increased awareness of the brands eventually leading to conversions. Extole sounds like a good old referral program for the social generation.

Have you come across any other interesting social marketing tools and solutions. Would love to hear from you!

A quick roundup of 4 exciting and innovative social commerce startups

@Gumroad promises to make selling "anything" easier and the "anything" includes music that you never released, book that you wrote, a comic that you created or the beta of a video game you are developing etc. Gumroad brings instant credibility in the form of its founder and CEO Sahil, who previously designed the highly acclaimed Pinterest interface and is being funded by silicon valley heavy weights. Their initial focus seems to be on selling virtual products but do provide ability to sell physical products as well, although their website is not very clear on how exactly the logistics is going to work.

@Shopcade - One look at Shopcade's homepage and you'll see that its pinterest-ified E-commerce. The way it works is that If you find something interesting on the web, you can add that product to Shopcade's website (just like you would pin something onto Pinterest). ofcourse the difference here is that your entry links back to a website where you can actually purchase the product. When someone actually purchases a product thru the link that you added, you get a share of the transaction value in the form of points. And the points you accumulate can be "redeemed" for perks on the Shopcade's website such as being able to customize the theme, provide a shopping assistant etc. Categories of products that can be added to Shopcade's site range from books and music to tickets and travel products and pretty much everything in between.

@Styleowner lets you create your own store. The store here is really nothing but a curated collection of things that you, as a fashionista or a stylist, think are going to set the trend. For example, you could be a purveyor of all things denim. You could create a store that promotes the latest and greatest in the world of denim. But what Styleowner helps you to do is to provide the necessary backend to be able to actually sell your curated collection. Instead of simply redirecting the customer to another website, it lets them buy the product on your site and the fulfillment is taken care of in the backend. Its a marketplace kind of model with social commerce on top.

@Chirpify is a twitter based commerce platform that allows you to buy/sell/donate/transact on Twitter. They provide a tight level of integration with Twitter and Paypal, which is mandatory for you to use Chirpify's services. Paypal is the default payment platform for Chirpify. Essentially Chirpify is trying to find a way to "monetize" followers of a brand, a small business or service but simply asking followers to reply to a tweet that promotes a product with pricing and other information. More than buying products etc, I am more intrigued by their fundraising application that could be applied during elections or for any other purpose. This platform seems to make it easier for anyone trying to collect funds from their followers thru this platform. Currently, paypal is the only form of payment that is accepted.

Final thoughts - An underlying theme with many of these models seems to focus on the ease of use and emphasize that you dont need to be a tech savvy person to sell online. The mantra seems to be "focus on your creativity and develop awesome content and we'll do the rest for you" One interesting fact that I noticed was that pretty much all of the sites let you use either your Twitter ID or Facebook ID, as a starting point for creating an account with these services. Google+ was conspicuously absent.

If you have come across other #socialcommerce models or other innovations in this space, would love to hear from you. Stay tuned for my next post on companies innovating on #socialcommerce centric #marketing solutions

A picture is worth a thousand words

The age-old saying has never been truer. Welcome to the age of the visual web! I think its very interesting to see the importance being paid to pictures and photos. Hint: Recently, a 13 person start-up with virtually no revenues was bought out for almost a billion dollars! One of the fastest growing social networks now is Pinterest, which is a visual online pinboard. The revamped UI in Google+ provides a lot more real estate for pictures and photos in your postings and also support animated GIFs, which makes it even more interesting. And Facebook is not far behind either. Almost 300 million photos are uploaded to the social networking giant - they sure know a thing or two about pictures and I am sure their Camera app and the newly acquired Instagram are going to innovate further in this space.

What does this mean to brands? I think this is a tremendous opportunity for brands to take advantage of. In fact brands like Victoria's Secret (easy for them) are already taking advantage of photo-centric features by posting hi-def pictures on their FB wall - enticing their fans by providing great visual imagery about their products but also engaging them in a meaningful manner. Isn't that what social media is all about?