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Recent Customer Research: Online Retail
Jul 6, 2005
Part of the mission of this newsletter is to inform customer experience practitioners about tools, strategies, and results of our research. Here's the latest:
At the recent 2005 Catalog Conference in Orlando, Creative Good conducted a series of listening labs on attendee websites. The results below were taken from labs on 14 different e-commerce sites: Office Depot, Home Shopping Network, Frederick's of Hollywood, and others.
As always, our goal in listening labs is to allow the customer - in an open-ended environment - to show us what their experience is, as they use the site. By making research more customer-focused, we're able to find problems in the customer experience very quickly.
While all the sites showed good intentions, the labs uncovered a number of problems with execution. These ranged from tactical, interface-level issues to more strategic challenges relating to merchandising, product strategy, and brand. (Listening labs are particularly good at revealing learnings from all levels, tactical to strategic; after all, customers don't make a distinction in the feedback they give.)
We found problems in several areas:
- Content groupings that reflect the company's view of the business, not the customer's view
- Navigation that hides important categories
- Confusing product images
- Important information not being presented at contextually relevant points in the process
- Missing product information
- Difficult product-comparison functions
We finished up with some recommendations for those 14 sites, and indeed for all the conference attendees' e-commerce sites. Based on the problems shown above, we concluded that online retailers must still focus on the basics, even as they offer advanced tools and functions on the site.
Here are the basics of a good e-commerce experience:
- Make it easy for the customer to find a product.
- Ensure that the customer can make a purchase decision.
- Eliminate barriers during checkout.
This isn't to suggest that retailers shouldn't invest in more advanced, high-tech features - to the contrary, we believe that those can be important in driving sales, especially from more experienced shoppers. However, no investment on the site is worth much if the basics are poorly executed. If the customer can't find a product, what does it matter that the site shows customer ratings? If the customer doesn't have enough information to buy the product, what does it matter to offer related products?
Our conclusion is that, even in 2005, basics matter. What's more, we believe that "the basics" will be the primary challenge for the online customer experience for some time. As any Net veteran will tell you, the main problems we've listed above are what most e-retailers have struggled with for years. We haven't yet graduated to a new level of complexity: the basics of the customer experience are still the most important.
- - -
P.S. If you're interested in pursuing a listening lab for your own website, there's a LabFest coming up in New York in a few weeks. LabFest both is a low-cost research session and a conference for practitioners to meet one another and share learnings.
- Description of LabFest (Jan. 10, 2005)
- Sign up for LabFest New York, taking place on Sept. 7-8, 2005.
Thanks for promoting a focus on the 'basics'. It's one of my pet peeves. It's the most overlooked area with the greatest potential for return.
7 weeks until back to school season - roughly 20 weeks to the holidays - nice wake up call huh, enjoy the summer - hopefully you'll spend some of it doing your own listening - OMG.
It’s the end of the day here and I got a chance to check back on my earlier tantrum and thankfully no one has posted an assault on my buzz kill/chip on my shoulder comment – sorry – here are some thoughts that may be more productive regarding my angst over why we are still struggling with basics.
Retailers are beginning to realize that they need to revamp their customer focus – customer centricity will be the hill we will all want to occupy –
Web folks may find dollars and champions in other departments to fund research that can generate additional awareness around the missed opportunities that come from design disconnects (like the fine work being done in Mark’s Learning Labs)
Perhaps you can use the dollars to fund a skunk works effort – perhaps you can produce a video with actual customer clips – that’s one way of horrifying higher-ups (just kidding) – when they see the kind of insights derived by talking to real people maybe you can get a budget next year to do it for real –
We have tackled all of the other problems, read: supply chain, real estate, sourcing, etc it is just a matter of time before we get the experience design issue down and shopping once again becomes personal and delightful
It’s ironic that the folks on the web side may actually be the leaders in what will eventually save us from the pit of markdowns and commoditization – I couldn’t resist the pontification –
Time for a drink – good night
I'll be interested to see how many retailers not only want to "occupy the hill" of customer-centered business, but are willing to invest in the changes needed to get there.
Customer centric sites - Yes
Easy navigation - Yes
Relevent page information - Yes
Vendor honesty - Yes
Vendor honesty? You might ask why I list vendor honesty as a trait of online retail "good experience". Let me relate a recent experience I had and maybe you'll understand where I'm coming from.
I recently needed to purchase a new LCD monitor for my wife. She requested a white/beige bezel. I did some research and found a particular model that I liked and decided to buy it online. I put in the model number in Google and instantly received links to many sites that proclaimed to offer that particular model and some sites like BizRate where you could compare multiple vendors prices against each other. I needed the monitor right away so I was willing to pay extra for overnight FedEx delivery and any special handling.
I selected a particular vendor and went to their site to see their description and check to see if the item was available and since the site proclaimed that they had the item in stock and ready for immediate shipment I proceeded to order it. The next day I received a call from this company saying they apologized, but the item I wanted was on back order and wouldn't be arriving for another month. Needless to say I was upset, but thought ok, no problem, there were other vendors who had the item in stock.
I went to the next vendor and checked to see if they had the item in stock. They proclaimed they did on their site so I went through their ordering process. Next day, a phone call saying, "sorry but the item is on back order". Now I'm angry.
So once again off I go to find another online vendor who supposedly has the item in stock and ready for shipment. Once again I order the monitor and once again I get the phone call the next day. Sorry but...
The third time was a charm. I gave up on the online vendors and I went to a bricks and mortar and made my purchase. I'm an avid online shopper when I need something but I'll never go back to any of the three online electronic vendors to purchase anything. They lied and I didn't appreciate it. There is no legitimate reason their inventory levels shouldn't have been accurate with an online store.
Oh, and by the way, all of these online stores were rated 4 stars or better on the price comparison sites.
Just my experience with three online vendors who purportedly have excellent service/user experience.