Responding to Customer Intent Wins!

Responding to Customer Intent Wins!

Since marketers and advertisers are in the business of telling customers what they need and want, retailers have gotten into the practice of making products attainable now, in order to pull up a customer’s purchase rather than waiting for the customer to buy on their own timeline. Out of fear they’ll find a comparable product elsewhere, they default to discounting the product and brand, in order to secure the sale.

Along with tactics like financing, instalments, layaway plans for more considered purchases or large ticket items, retailers turn to promotions to churn more purchases through. And the best/worst promotions are those that drive down price and hurt retail margins.

 

Build it and they will come; discount it and they will buy

While a marketing calendar might have previously allowed retailers to plan events and communications to sell their wares, promotional calendars have become retailers’ default play book. Products are featured and marked down, categories are specially priced, site-wide discounts are advertised periodically. And the periodical flyer has trained the customer to purchase at discounted prices, so that they only think of brands in association with the lowest prices the brand can offer, diluting the brand value and hurting not just their margins but also their brand profile.

 

Artificially yours, the customer

What these promotions have done is created artificial experiences that can only be sustained with continuous discounting rather than a meaningful relationship with the brand. Customers are willing to follow the discount, rather than follow the brand and appreciate the value.

With heavy discounts, retailers have made it easier for customers to have to buy, with the barrier to purchase being lowered as prices continually decrease. Rather than hold the brand with value, their first consideration becomes whether or not the retailer can continue to give them the lowest prices, with no regard to the sustainability of this practice and what it could lead to when a retailer has to sacrifice its margins by being overly generous with discounts.

 

Get to the heart of intent

Instead of discounting to pull up purchases, which doesn’t necessarily attract the best customers, why not focus on understanding and responding to true customer intent? You’re confident that your offering is the best out there. You know you’ve priced it well. You know that it’s needed/wanted by the market. You can just focus on making sure your customers’ interactions when they come to your site are as seamless as possible and that they can come back for a consistent experience.

 

Are you intrigued about how we’ve helped retailers understand, respond to and capitalize on their customers’ intent? Talk to us today.

Why wait until customers abandon cart?

Why wait until customers abandon cart?

If you’re one of the best shopkeepers, you ensure that all points in your customer’s experience, from the moment they see your storefront, to when they exit your store, are meaningful and contribute toward an experience they will want to repeat. You curate your store to show your intent as a seller in order to respond to your customer’s browsing and buying intent.

 

The Means to the End

When it comes to the best e-commerce sites, your team works hard to ensure you have the best martech tools so that regardless of customer intent, whether they’re browsing, showrooming, bargain-hunting or just plain old shopping, your customer experience is intact and contributing toward your e-commerce profitability. Your e-comm, digital marketing, merchandising, category managers, and technology resources all work together in building the total e-comm experience, all tactics being means to the end of securing the customer’s purchase. You plan and execute against questions like:

  • What marketing tactics do we deploy to pull/push customers to our site instead of our competitors’?
  • How can we ensure the lowest barriers for finding product information, including comparing products across our site?
  • How do we compete with other retailers on price, availability, and selection?
  • How can we ensure a frictionless checkout experience?
  • Is it easy to make a return or exchange to ensure customer satisfaction?

 

In the Event of a Saved Cart

Beyond these, you’ve even thought about what to do in the event that they save a cart and exit the site, which 56% of shoppers do – to hold items and save them for later. You know you want to keep that saved cart top of mind, since the more distance they have from it, the more likely they are to abandon their cart and renege on their intent to purchase. So you push timely remarketing communications once they’ve left your site – like emails or push notifications to remind your customers that they still have a cart waiting.

 

Get Them While They’re Hot

While you might still consider what you’ll do if and when they leave, make sure you still do something in the moment, while their intent to purchase is measuring higher. In real-time, you can employ tools to measure their probability to convert, to abandon, to stretch their cart, and anything you can do to confirm their intent and capitalize on their behaviour will be to your benefit! So why not get them while they’re still ‘in-store’?

 

Often, when a cart is at risk for abandonment, you need to tap into an arsenal of tactics that will influence their decision to convert.

  • Is this customer price sensitive? Should I present an individualized offer for a margin-aware discount?
  • Is this customer worried about true to fit sizing? Should I remind them with a targeted message about our hassle-free returns?
  • Would this customer spend a little more if I offer free shipping for a minimum purchase?

 

If you’re curious about how other retailers have been able to convert more browsers to buyers, talk to us about how we’ve helped! With a product like ES Engage, we’ve been able in real time to capture incremental revenue, reduce cart abandonment and stretch customer basket size. Let us tell you how!

How do I understand and leverage customer intent?

How do I understand and leverage customer intent?

When Retailers ask, ‘How may I help you?’ it’s not just about greeting the customer and letting them know you’re there to help. It’s a very direct way of understanding customer intent so Retailers can better equip themselves to create a great customer experience. Frequently this experience ends in a purchase and sets expectations for the customer’s next visit to be smooth and hopefully more than or just as successful as their last.

 

I see you!

In e-commerce, it’s not that easy to understand customer intent without the benefit of face-to-face interaction that comes with a bricks and mortar visit. However, we know that it’s still very possible to ‘read’ and interpret the customer’s intent. The benefit to understanding customer intent is that Retailers can adjust their service in order to best meet the customer’s needs, creating the best experience at the time of the customer interaction.

 

I understand you!

Here’s an example of a (fictional) retailer understanding customer intent to best serve their customers.

 

Maddison

  • Behaviour:
    • She’s just logged on to her online account at lovetoshop.com, where she hasn’t shopped in 3 months.
    • She navigates to ‘Outerwear’ and filters to ‘Coats’ and reads reviews on 2 fall coats that are $250 each. She also uses the ‘Fitting Room’ feature to try them on virtually.
    • She then turns off the filters and selects ‘Sweaters’ adding 2 sweaters to her cart, which puts her cart value to $200.
  • Treatment:
    • A message pops up after she adds the sweaters to her cart, with an offer for $25 savings when she purchases $250 or more today.
  • Result:
    • Maddison accepts the offer and navigates to ‘Coats’, adds one of the coats she’d viewed earlier, replacing one of the sweaters she picked out and checks out with a $325 cart after her $25 discount is applied.
    • She was initially asked to stretch her original cart by 25% with a small incentive.
    • She ends up growing her cart by 75% over her initial order size, when she checks out with $325 instead of $200, with one of the coats she initially browsed.

Flynn

  • Behaviour:
    • Flynn generally makes 1 large purchase every 3 months, but logs in to her account at lovetoshop.com every month to check out the Look Book.
    • On this visit, while visiting the Look Book, she navigates to the product page for the Accessories featured for FW 2018 and uses the ‘Dressing Room’ feature to virtually try on a few hats ranging from $50 – $75.
  • Treatment:
    • After ‘trying on’ a 4th hat, a message pops up for Flynn reminding her that purchases of $55 and up are eligible for Free Returns and Exchanges.
    • She clicks ‘Thanks’ on the message and adds a hat priced at $60 to her cart and checks out.
    • Her monthly browse ($0) resulted in a spontaneous $60 purchase that might have otherwise been deferred until her quarterly purchase, but with the reassurance of Free Returns and Exchanges, she left with a purchase and the knowledge that it wouldn’t be an issue if she needed to return her hat.

 

In Maddison’s case,

  • She had shown intent to buy by adding to cart and a propensity to stretch her basket by initially reviewing higher priced coats.
  • So, with a small incentive (worth 10% of the targeted basket size), her order was grown 75% over its initial value.

In Flynn’s case,

  • She had shown her interest in the hats and had previously shown intent to purchase by being a regular shopper.
  • This session would have just been a browsing visit, but with the right non-monetary offer, her browse turned into a buy.

 

I got you!

The retailer didn’t need to resort to slashing prices and diluting their margins in order to secure the sale in either case. And while retailers have been programmed to providing a ‘great deal’ through mass discounts is the only way to secure the sale, these were both cases where the retailer provided incentives that were appropriate responses to the customer’s intent, creating a win-win scenario:

  • Customers found what they were looking for (they’re always looking for something and don’t always need a deal) and left satisfied with their purchase and their experiences.
  • Retailer was able to get a great ROI with a small incentive investment and by showcasing the value of free returns and exchanges.

 

These are typical results for our own clients, where by helping them understand and respond to customer intent, we’re able to improve Average Order Value, reduce cart abandonment and incrementally increase conversion. Ask us how we do this with ES Engage!

“I’m just looking”

“I’m just looking”

Well, there’s a statement retailers must patiently parse! And before deciding if this is a dismissal or just the customer buying time away from a well-meaning (hovering) store associate, the retailer must check for other cues –

  • is this customer picking up merchandise as they walk around the store,
  • are they looking in the direction of the fitting room,
  • are they looking on their mobile device and comparing prices online

– to discover the customer’s true intentions during this visit to their bricks and mortar location. They might decide to stick close to the customer to secure the sale or walk away with assurances to the customer that they’re not too far if they do have any questions.

Nope, not always just looking

It’s quite different when the customer’s browsing an online store and retailers can’t pick up those exact same cues, but that’s not to say there aren’t any clues that can help to interpret customer intent. For logged-in customers with rich profile data to mine, a retailer could use demographic information in order to smooth out the customer experience. They’d be able to craft an experience for that customer because there are precedents from similar customers that can be used as a foundation.

Same Same, But Different

However, demographics alone aren’t enough. The retailer must understand each customer’s intent, so that experiences can be curated differently. In the example below, both customers are logged in and the retailers know from their profiles that they are both male, 20-25, and have California Postal Codes, but that’s essentially where their similarities end. They act very differently upon logging in.

Adam’s Behaviour Interpreted Customer Intent
– Logged In and navigated to ‘Sale’ Shopping out of habit, Adam may be looking to round out his wardrobe with some specific pieces but only if he finds them on sale.
– Filtered by size, sorted by price
– Selected shirts and shorts to add to cart
Curating Adam’s Experience
Adam seems to know exactly what he wants and may not need additional incentive in order to purchase. The discounted merchandise incents him to add to cart and proceed to checkout.

He also doesn’t seem to need any help/interference and is appreciative of the self-service nature of shopping online.
Brandon’s Behaviour Interpreted Customer Intent
– Logged in and navigated to ‘Look Book S/S 2019’ Brandon appears to be looking for inspiration for the season. Unlike Adam, he didn’t sort by price and check availability in his size.
– Browsed outfits and the size chart
– Set his size to ‘M’
Curating Brandon’s Experience
Since Brandon is looking for inspiration ahead of next season, price and availability aren’t considerations for him yet. He may appreciate product recommendations and help from curated content and messages – ‘Brandon, you might enjoy this combination’, ‘Did you know that we have hassle-free returns?’, ‘Don’t forget that we offer complimentary tailoring’.

Besides these helpful interventions, Brandon may also appreciate an offer for 3% return on his current purchase that he can use towards his next purchase.

 

At first pass, Adam and Brandon may have some similar characteristics, but they were still individuals with very different intent. They benefited from differentiated experiences online, rather than being clustered and treated similarly. With an understanding of their intent as customers, the Retailer served them each well:

  • Adam’s beeline towards Sale items was smooth, without distraction and he was able to make the quick self-serve purchase he wanted.
  • Brandon’s purposeful browsing for inspiration was helped by the timely interventions and he was also primed for a future purchase with a reward.

Yes, both were ‘just looking’ but had personalized frictionless experiences that converted them from browsers into buyers, because the Retailer understood their intentions from the clues they presented as they browsed.

Talk to us about what we do to understand customer intent and how we’ve been able to use it for our clients’ benefit! You can also check out ES Engage, and see how Individualized Offers have enabled our clients to respond to their customers’ intent, while protecting margins, optimizing promotional spend and increasing e-commerce profitability.

Promotional Insanity

Promotional Insanity

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”.

Some wise person*

Same old, same old

Oh sure, this year, you did a quarterly email to high value customers to spend $250 to get 25% off instead of repeating last year’s tactic of posting a seasonal banner on your website advertising 25% off everything online. Was it differentiated enough to bring in new sales, protect your margins, and generate profit? Perhaps you had customers sharing the coupon code on retailmenot.com with comments from upset customers who thought it was bad form that you only emailed this to some customers and not all, plus you added a large spend minimum.

The dependence on Promotions isn’t something new and it’s proving fatal to some retailers, case in point, the Gap. Retailers have trained themselves to build out a Promotional Calendar and most customers have trained themselves to look for promotions and purchase only during a large margin-hurting promotion.

It’s no wonder Retailers are driving themselves insane trying to maintain margins while being unable to wean themselves off Promotions! It’s also no wonder, most Retailers express the same pain points year after year and find themselves caught forever in the struggle to drive revenue, protect margins and just achieve a slight positive comp, or at least have same YOY results – flat is better than a dip after all, if an uptick just isn’t achievable.

Distractions and Losing Sight

All this noise is enough to make Retailers lose sight of goals that are quite achievable, with just some minor adjustments and asking questions that allow them to assess whether they should change things up!

What are we doing to increase Customer Lifetime Value: Were the investments we made into our customers worth the return?

How are we increasing Average Revenue Per Customer

Have we increased Spend per Visit and Basket Size?

When measuring the results against the methods we used, did we improve our profitability this year over last?

Or did we just have a game plan of ‘Run at least the same promotional calendar as our #1 competition, so we can at least stay ‘competitive’ for market share’?

Bold Moves, Better Results

So what if we told you, that Retailers like yourself are getting incremental revenue, without resorting to mass and deep discounts? Or that these same retailers are able to protect margin, grow their customers’ baskets, shape demand in certain categories and do it with minimal investment?

It’s a bold move, not discounting more than 10% and not giving it away to everyone who comes onsite. And it works!

With ES Engage’s Individualized Offers, we’ve been able to help retailers improve customer lifetime value while ensuring promotions are optimized and executed in a brand-sustainable manner. Ask us how we’ve driven 10% incremental revenue and margin, 8% lift in orders, generate 2x ROI improvement on marketing spend and achieve 15% increase in customer lifetime value for our Clients.

If you want to learn more about how we can optimize your marketing dollars —

Download our e-book today

 

Make a bold move and stop the madness!

 

*The quote is often attributed to Albert Einstein but no one’s really sure if he was the first ever to say it. In any case, whoever said it was a very wise person.