Commerce 2.0 Communication

Two way communications is an important building block within the framework of social shopping and it is also one of the most difficult and especially for large retailers.  Two way communications is a powerful method of customer engagement and it is also a very difficult method of communications because of the effort and focus required to maintain the conversation.  Two way communications requires both sides be engaged in the conversation and actively participating, which includes active listening.  This is the most difficult aspect for large retailers because it requires maintaining the continuum of the conversation and this is very difficult when multiple representatives and systems are involved from the retailer perspective.

A major challenge is to create a method to capture the continuum of the contacts and conversations with customers.  When I think about my contacts with companies, not just retailers but any contact with a company I realize that the most successful contacts are due to the companies ability to maintain the string of the conversation from previous contacts.  This ability to access the previous communications and contacts with the customers is the factor that makes the contact personal and maintains the relationship with the customers.  All customers realize that they cannot hope to maintain the contact with the same person over and over throughout their relationship with a company, customers do expect however that the person that they are dealing with will have access to the information discussed previously and also have all of the previous purchase information for the individual customer.

As I have previously discussed, active communication requires that the retailer listen and respond to the specific customer comments and questions and not respond with ‘canned’ responses.  This is why it is so important for the retailer to maintain records and transactions related to the customer to support the communication.  Perception is critical in the communication and in order for the customers to perceive that the retailer is listening and engaging their customers the retailer must maintain all contact and purchase information.  Think about your relationship with a local small specialty retailer, or even hair dresser, one of the important aspects is the retailers memory of your interactions, they remember your name or remember what you purchased, or remember you conversation.  This memory of the relationship allows them to build the personal relationship and two way communication.  This memory also makes the customer feel like their business matters, it makes the relationship personal and encourages the customer to return over and over again.  The trick is for larger retailers to create the same ‘memory’ of the customer relationship that can carry over from contact to contact.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumers’ experience?  Improving the consumers experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Commerce 2.0 Engagement

The word engagement is a powerful word that people tend to throw around a lot in discussions related to the retail market.  How to engage consumers to grow sales?  How to engage consumers to retain their sales?  I am sure you have heard many of these.  Everyone has an opinion on customer, or consumer, engagement and I think that just means that there are many different aspects to engagement that in fairness must be explored to evaluate the effectiveness of the particular engagement actions.  I too have my own opinions on methods to engage the consumer and my opinions focus on two aspects; the social aspect and continuous improvement.  This should not be a surprise to any regular reader because continuous improvement is one of my regular mantras.

Let me start with the social aspect of engagement.  I believe that a key aspect of engagement is active, two way, communications.  In other words, the retailer must communicate with the customer and not talk to, or at, the customer.  This is a simple and yet very powerful difference and can be manifested in simple ways that all focus on one aspect, active listening and communication skills.  I have been discussing all along what I feel to be the key aspect of the new eCommerce and that is the social shopping aspect.  There are two parts to this social shopping;

1. The interaction of the customer with friends and other customers.
2. The interaction of the customer with the retailer.

In this discussion I want to focus on the interaction between the customer and the retailer.  Retailers have embraced the omnichannel market and tools to simplify and speed the purchase process and the marketing process.  You have all been subjected to the endless streams of emails and Facebook pages that promote the retailer and special events or sales.  These are all basically one way communications from the retailer.

The next phase of eCommerce is incorporating two way communications with the customer and practicing active communications with the customers.  This includes engaging the customer to provide feedback on items, such as the program instituted by Amazon to invite customers to provide product reviews and then take the next step of reaching out to the customer to respond to other customers’ questions regarding the product.  On the other side of the coin, active communications is not sending the customer a survey after the purchase that consists of a list of questions regarding the sale.

Active communication requires that the retailer listen and respond to the specific customer comments and questions and not respond with ‘canned’ responses.  This is opening the door to the customer becoming a part of the product design and selection team or becoming a part of the marketing team to provide insight into the specific demographic desires.  Consumers want someone to listen to them and when they find this in a retailer they will remain a customer for a long time.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumers’ experience?  Improving the consumers experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Commerce 2.0 Relationships

Consumers have been building virtual relationships for years while retailers have been building a virtual presence.  Consumers are now beginning the extend these virtual relationships utilizing mobile technology to support their shopping needs and desires.  This expansion of the virtual relationship is a logical progression that will dramatically impact the retailers, and especially large retailers.  Mobile technology has made this expansion easy and the consumer is simply utilizing these tools to support their shopping demands.  The interesting point is that these mobile tools were provided by another retail market segment to maintain their sales.  This shows the relationships between services and products provided by one retailer that directly or indirectly impact other retailers, or in the case of mobile technology the entire retail marketplace.

As I have previously discussed, consumers are open to building relationships with other people and organizations, you can see this from the participation in meet-up type groups, Yelp, Foursquare and also the participation in the social aspect of Amazon.  This openness should be no surprise to retailers, because consumers have been reacting on Facebook to retailers both positive and negative for quite some time.  Retailers have realized the importance of a presence on Facebook and each have developed the presence to interact with consumers.  Facebook, however, is mostly just another marketing and sales outlet for most retailers.  In addition, the younger consumers no longer utilize Facebook to the extent they once did.  The challenge then for retailers is to identify the social networks they in which they should participate.   

Retailers must focus on engaging with the consumer rather than selling to the consumer.  This is an important distinction that differentiates the retailers current use of the medium and tools from their future use of the tools in order to be successful.  What I mean by this is that most retailers today maintain a one way communication link to consumers with the key direct feedback from consumers being the service surveys that I think do more to annoy the customer than to collect actionable information from the consumer.  Retailers depend on the sales data and the industry new product events to determine what to offer the consumer.  This is fine as a starting point, is should not be the ending point though.

Retailers that spend the time to engage the consumer will realize greater benefits than they ever would have simply through the one way communication practiced today.  Retailers must realize and embrace the social aspect of the marketplace or the consumer will go to the retailer that does.  This means that retailers must change their culture from one that focuses on protecting the sale to one that focuses on the consumer desires in order to maintain success.        

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumers’ experience?  Improving the consumers experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?