Article Contributed by Sean Blanks, Marketing Manager, cartridgesave.co.uk
In today’s world of never-ending choice, a disappointed customer is one that’s lost forever. This is because if you deliver a bad experience, the infinite options on offer means the customer can find an alternative by just scrolling down Google. It’s therefore imperative that you work to ensure your offering and your customer experience is better than the competition’s.
It’s no longer simply a case of offering best price, because everyone is trying to do that. Through a quick online search, customers are able to price-match even when they are away from the desktop.
Instead customers also require a flawless back-end service enabling them to order next day and return goods free of charge; where customer service is available across a number of platforms; and they can access offers and services personalised to them.
So what do you need to do in 2016 to stand out from the competition?
Innovate
Over the past ten years Burberry has experienced a huge transformation, positioning themselves as the height of luxury-chic by working tirelessly to engage a new, young customer base. They’ve engaged them by giving them a digital experience that Generation Y appreciate, identify with and place the brand in a relevant light to them.
Their flagship store in London is a great example. Here they blur the brand’s off and online presence. For example, shoppers can pick up an item of clothing and be presented with a video of it brought to life on the arm of a supermodel, just as they would if they were browsing online. This fun element makes the shop a must visit, which encourages shoppers to step inside. Once inside, they are one step closer to purchasing.
Conversely, in the digital space, they offer their brand followers the same VIP treatment as their real world celebrities. They were the first to broadcast their catwalks live on social media, so that fans at home could have democratic access to the content normally reserved for the A list.
By looking for innovative means to market to a demographic who had previously been untapped, Burberry has become one of the highest profile brands on social media. When you think that awareness and consideration are key factors driving customers to invest, Burberry have been extremely savvy. The more people are talking about them and encouraged to step into a store, the more people are likely to buy.
At cartridgesave.co.uk one of our key targets is schools. Although they represent a small proportion of our customer base, we were keen to grow it. So we used PR to engage by offering schools added-value. In 2015 we launched a competition called Write Christmas, offering students a chance to win £1,000 for their schools by penning a festive story. The competition gave us reason to speak to schools without leading with a sales message. Instead we ‘gifted’ them with the chance to win, alongside top tips of how to make this a part of their national curriculum teaching. The results were fantastic. We received thousands of entries, including data we could use for future marketing. And crucially, the happy, and desired byproduct, of this engagement campaign was the growth of our school accounts.
Real world and online working as one
A few years ago experts were heralding the end of the high street. Today it’s very much still a British institution and the retailers that are thriving are those who have diversified their offering to merge their real world and online space. Argos is a great case-in-point. Its adoption of click and collect has resulted in the brand becoming the first to register £1m in mobile sales. Customers can conveniently order online and pick up the parcel in store, bypassing the frustrating element of online shopping where you have to wait in for a parcel.
If you have a physical shop, it’s really important that you can offer the same things instore and online, and vis versa. It’s also important to identify what the customer wants. Do they want you opening at 9am or would it be better to operate later opening hours, if that’s when demand for your stock is at a premium both on and offline?
Humanise the anonymous world of online
Use data to identify what customers buy and browse, plus what they like, where they live and what life stage they are in. Rather than this being ‘big brother’ it means you can target customers with offers and promotions that are relevant than them.
For example we use Facebook advertising to target specific demographics. We pull data from site visits to try and engage customers who have been online in the last 30 days with reminders that we offer free delivery on orders of any size. So that we remind them of a difference that gives them reason to order that little thing on their list, no matter how small. We also use Facebook to promote our business accounts, just to the business community. Which means our feed is not full of content irrelevant to our social community; but at the same time we are able to reach office managers and operation managers with valuable information on our 30 days credit, 0% interest, no contract offering.
Add personality
Shoppers are now motivated by personality. They want to purchase from brands that represent them and are more willing to pay if the brand is ‘like me’.
Innocent is a great example of a company that has embraced this soft benefit. Their personality-driven marketing offers humour and a sense of British irrelevance that makes consumers forget that they are owned by Coca Cola. Instead, shoppers buy into the wholesome image and the fact that they are very vocal about donating to charity.
Empower employees
Make sure that your customer facing staff offer the same experience whether they are visiting in store, calling to complain or enquiring via social media. Customers demand a consistency good experience and the person answering a tweet must be as knowldegable and care as much as the customer service manager dealing with high value complaints.
To empower your employees, ensure they have the opportunity to be immersed in your company values; are given sufficient training; and have the authority to make decisions, for example offer refunds for faulty goods without holding up the process while they “wait for a manager to authorise”.