Johan Gente, lärare på IHM Business School, pratade på ett seminarium som de ordnat tillsammans med Wednesday Relations. Seminariet hette ”Bygg kundlojalitet som lönar sig” och Johan var bara en i raden av föreläsare.

Johan pratade om hur du får en smartare kundkommunikation via 7 enkla steg.

1.        Multichannel communication- integrerad kommunikation

• Utnyttja befintliga kanaler fullt ut
• Använd samma tonalitet i alla kanaler
• Anpassa budskap efter kanal

 2.       Vårda relationen till befintliga kunder

• Vad ger du dina befintliga, trogna kunder?
• Stärker du relationen eller byter du bara ut en trogen, lönsam kund mot en ny illojal kund?

3.       Öka relevansen i din kommunikation

• Segmenterad kommunikation är det första steget
• Personlig kommunikation är nästa steg

4.       Händelsestyrd kommunikation

• Följ upp din kund

5.       Lönsamhet i fokus

• T ex en kundklubb

6.       Välj rätt kanal för din kommunikation

• SMS
• E-mail
• Print

7.       Mervärden

• Visa att du uppskattar dina kunder t ex via bonussystem, riktade utskick mm
• Status som mervärde- differentiera produkterna

Apple visar på sin world class vad gäller e-handel.

Jag var ute efter julkul, och inspirerades av Apples Garageband. Inspirationen skapas dels i fysiska Apple-store och dels genom bra och utförliga beskrivningar på nätet. När Apple nu startade sin julkampanj i helgen, med bra erbjudanden, gick jag i söndags kväll från att vara inspirerad, till ”dags att köpa”.

Bra verktyg för att konfigurera lämplig dator (i detta fall Mac mini) och bra cross sell, så det blev lite extra minne, en magic mouse och ett keyboard för att spela musik. När konfiguration och alla val var gjorda, var det bara att ange inloggningsuppgifter till iTunes-kontot, konfirmera med säkerhetskod och ”off it went”.

Klockan 10 idag (tisdag), ringer budfirman och meddelar att man är i min stadsdel, redo att leverera varorna vid dörren!

Tycker detta är ett skolboksexempel på Optimize och bra e-handel. Allt från multikanal, inspiration, conversion, till cross sell (jo blev lite up sell med mer minne också:-) samt fulfillment, som i alla fall överträffade mina förväntningar.

Med detta har Apple inte bara fått en nöjd kund, utan också drivit processen vidare med ”retain” (jo jag kommer garanterat köpa mer därifrån!) och ”recruit”, jo inte svårt att föra budskapet vidare och rekommendera Apple-store!

För dom som vill inspireras av world-class rekommenderas www.apple.se och www.nike.com. Kanske designa och personalisera Nike-skor som julklapp?

Björn Schröder
Senior eBusiness Advisor Brightstep

Here are the conversion rate statistics from June 2009:

1. ProFlowers 24.0%
2. Vitacost 23.3%
3. 1800Flowers 19.5%
4. Roamans19.2%
5. Office Depot 18.5%
6. Blair 17.3%
7. QVC 17.0%
8. Victoria’s Secret 16.8%
9. DrsFosterSmith.com 16.4%
10. Amazon 16.4%

*Source

As always the top flower companies, ProFlowers and 1800Flowers are at the top of the list. And it is fun to see Victoria´s Secret on the 8th place. I have followed Victoria´s Secret e-commerce site for some time now and they are doing a great job with there site. If you have miss it, now is a great time to get som insiration how to work with clear call to action and offers.

If you need help improving your conversion rate, let us know.

We at Brightstep often get questions about how high conversion rate should I have and what have other e-retailers for conversion rate. As we have previously written about the conversion rate,  the conversion rates are affected by many parameters and there is no precise answer to these questions. But a way to work with the conversion rate as a measurement is to compare it over time with the average conversion rate in a specific industry. Unfortunately, there are not any statistics for the conversion rate in Sweden or Scandinavia, but we will be here on e-commmerceblog present monthly statistic from both fire click Index and Nielsen Online / Marketing Charts.

Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate: May 2009

1. ProFlowers 38.6%
2. Office Depot 28.0%
3. Online Retail Total 25.6%
4. Vitacost.com 25.0%
5. Quixtar 23.4%
6. Blair 23.4%
7. Roamans22.6%
8. 1800Flowers 20.5%
9. Woman Within19.6%
10. Spiegel 18.20%

In a market survey we did recently we called customers who shopped on a particular site and asked them about their e-commerce experience and if they encountered any problems. It turned out that the last two customers who purchased on the site both had encountered the same problem. The problem occurred at checkout, when they tried to pay for the product. One of the boxes had a vague description and the customers filled out the wrong information. This was the first error, the second error was that instead of getting an error message that told the customer that they had made an error it came an error message that said that there was a server error. One of the customers thought it was wrong with the site and went in and tried to buy every day for a week before he contacted customer service and got help! Customer number two thought that the purchase had gone through and waited a whole week to get the product delivered. When it never came, he contacted the customer service and only then learned that he had not purchased the product.

What can we learn from this? Usability is extremely important. What you label your form fields may ultimately affect whether you sell your goods or not. Error messages are incredibly important and they should explain what kind of errors that occurs. If we hadn’t talked to the customers the chances are we never would have discovered the problem and there would still been a serious error in checkout. But by doing user testing and talk to the real users have a chance to anticipate and address the errors that would otherwise affect the sales.

Another lesson learned is that there are faithful and loyal customers. They actually do not give up and go to another site to buy their goods. Too bad that these loyal customers are so few.
How do you avoid user problems on your site? Do you talk to your e-commerce customer? Do you test the user experience through user tests?

Using the conversion rates to measure whether an e-commerce is profitable is simply wrong. E-retailers that have an extremely high number of visitors can have a small conversion rate and still make money on their e-commerce. E-retailers with few visitors and high conversion rate can also be profitable.

Misconception number 1

E-traders measure conversion rate by divided the visitors with orders while the visitor´s goal with his or her visit does not need to be a purchase. It can be anything from obtaining information about a particular product to whether the e-retailer has a physical store nearby.

Tips

Find out which goals your visitors have when they visit your e-commerce site.
Measure conversion rate on your visitors’ goals with their visit.
Make changes so that more visitors meet their goals and find ways so that the visitors’ goals are in line with your goals for your e-commerce site.

Misconception number 2

Although the average conversion rate for e-commerce sites is around 2% does not mean that your e-commerce site is great because you to have a 7% conversion rate. What conversion rate your e-commerce site has is due to thousands of factors, from which industry the company operates, what image the company has, the e-commerce site structure, your value proposition and right down to which color and design the buy button has.

Tips

You cannot draw any conclusions by just looking at the conversion ratio. This number needs to be put in context in order for you to come to some form of insight. It can be done by comparing the conversion rate over time, with a competitor, on a given campaign, for a given product or for different segments.

Misconception number 3

The conversion rate is not an instrument to measure or produce changes in an e-commerce. Of course the conversion rate can be used in a follow-up but then as a superior ratio.

Tips

Break down the site into micro conversions. A micro conversion can be an event or activity that a visitor can make on e-commerce site. It may be to add a product to the cart, enlarge the product picture, rate or write a review on a product and so on. What you then need to do is create the connection between these micro-conversions, which ultimately leads to the final conversion rate. This allows you to identify activities in your e-commerce site and testing different versions of a page and features.

This financial crisis and current down economy affects all companies in some way. Many companies are now trying to do everything to reduce costs and streamline their business. Now e-retailers need to go back to basics and build a solid structure Continue reading