We have brands approaching us all the time with the goal of making more money. As with anything, there are many ways we can go about this, but there are three key points that we always bring everything back to. They are: Consistency is key The customer isn’t always right When in doubt, go back to basics. Consistency is key Consistency can make or break a brand. It’s something that a lot of brands don’t really think about, but it’s something customers notice. The key question any brand sh
should ask itself is “can we give the same level of service to the same customer five times in a row?”
If I bought something from a website and it was really easy, I got all the email notifications, and received my order the next day, there’s a strong likelihood I’ll go back and shop again. If on my second visit I bought something, there was a problem placing the order, then it finally turned up four days later, I would question which experience is the typical experience that brand provides.
A brand can spend huge amounts of money on marketing, ongoing development, and strategy, only to be let down by an inconsistent experience.
The customer isn’t always right
We’ve all heard the saying ‘the customer is always right’, and in some cases it’s good to stick by. In a customer service debacle, as a brand, you can’t be seen to be argumentative or suggest the customer is wrong or flat out lying.
It’s always good to take the ‘customer is always right’ mantra on board in this situation, however, when it comes to ideas or suggestions on what could be done differently, it’s important to take these ideas on board, but not rush to make changes.
If you were to do a survey of 1000 of your customers, and ask for some key changes they would make to your business (whether it be functionality, product mix, presentation of product, shipping and/or returns), you’d get a massive amount of mixed feedback. It’s critical to listen to this feedback, but spend some time digesting and devising ways to choose what’s good and achievable for you.
From here, test. Running an A/B or multi-variate tests on any idea never hurts. It’s either going to confirm your hypothesis, or save you from rolling out a potentially damaging change to all your customers. Steve Jobs was a big believer in this, often quoted as saying “people don’t know what they want until you show it to them”, which I think sums this point up perfectly.
When in doubt, go back to basics.
It’s great to come up with exciting ideas your customers will enjoy, but at the same time, these ideas will be wasted if you’re not ticking off the basics. Can I easily create an account, add something to my cart and buy? If I can’t do those things, there’s no point in implementing exciting new functionality because it won’t make up for the current issues.
It’s always better to innovate rather than invent. Give your customers an improved experience instead of a new experience.
Moving online and staying up to date is an exciting, but daunting task. What functionality should we be adding? What do we need to change? What’s working and what’s not? The points above will help you make sense of those questions that seem to come up every day when you’re managing your business.
Lance O’Grady is the MD of Pocket Square, fashion focused digital agency, and can be contacted on 0800 155 055 and lance@pocketsquare.co.nz
