Thread Intelligence Article

January 8, 2004
By Dirk Knemeyer

The first part of this series provided a broad overview of the respective advantages that eCommerce and traditional stores have when compared to each other. In order to be a catalyst for eCommerce taking the most possible share of the market, we need to systematically address and overcome the advantages that traditional stores hold over eCommerce portals. That is the focus of the next five parts in the series.

Information, salespeople and buying a digital camera
I’ve spent some time talking with my friend Frances about digital cameras. A number of people have recommended that I buy one; they’re more convenient to shoot with, more affordable over the product lifecycle, easier to share and apply the pictures I take. Valid reasons all. However, I really adore my SLR camera (a Minolta Maxxum 7) and am hesitant to make the quality trade-off. But I’m thinking about it. And that “thinking” usually means looking at cameras on the web.

This juxtaposes with a recent trip to the camera store, where I went to get film developed. As I was walking out of the store, I heard the very beginning of a salesperson’s interaction with a customer:

“So, what are you looking for in a tripod?” “Well, I want it to be really light and portable, so I can take it with me even when I’m walking and not be bogged down.”

At that point, a very obvious realization clicked in my mind: A significant hurdle to people buying on the web is the literal impossibility to have questions like that answered in a simple and personalized way. Consider just my top-of-mind questions about digital cameras: How is digital functionally different from SLR? How many “megapixels” does the sensor need to satisfy my subjective quality standards and specific applications? What is the continuum of zoom lens strengths and how do those affect price point? How much farther can digital cameras reasonably go in the short-and-medium term, and what sort of price points will accompany that movement?

I’ve looked and haven’t found those answers on the web, much less in one easy, consolidated place. When I do finally purchase a digital camera, the process – and potentially even the purchase – will by necessity include visiting a traditional camera store. Getting the answers that I need will take a real live person who not only has the basic facts and knowledge stored but also can translate my subjective (and ultimately uneducated) views and standards into a synthesized conclusion that successfully meets my needs and desires.

Salespeople can be a good thing
Salespeople add real value to the experience of shopping in a traditional store. They answer questions. They provide insight and advice. They represent a human connection, the direct interaction that not only makes the process of shopping more pleasant, but also engenders trust in the store and the product – increasing the likelihood of a purchase. These are significant factors that deserve careful scrutiny.

Existing eCommerce sites certainly attempt to address these issues. Let’s explore some of their current methods and analyze the strengths and weaknesses apparent in each.

Method 1
Sites provide pages and content that proactively address frequently asked questions, or provide information that answers questions even before a person has cause to formulate them

This is a logical and intuitive approach, present to some degree in perhaps every eCommerce site on the web. However, in order to leverage online information in a way that eclipses the traditional store experience, many factors must be balanced and successfully executed. By and large, this is simply not being done.

For online content to provide the answers that people are looking for, it must:

• Understand the people’s needs and desires
• Understand how the people shop for this type of product
• Understand how the people shop online
• Craft the appropriate information based on understanding the people’s motives and behaviors (synthesizing the previous three points)
• Make that information easy to find (globally) from anywhere in the “store”
• Sensibly weave the information in or adjacent to the content and products that would benefit from its presence
• Update and tweak the information on a regular basis to optimize effectiveness

However, very few sites get this right. Most try, and some even get a good portion of it right, but almost none address all of these content considerations successfully. In fact, the only site I can think of that does a really nice job is www.crutchfield.com.

Method 2
Provide the ability for co-creation, so shoppers can both participate and get insight and advice from many different people who have purchased or shopped for a product

We are in an era of co-creation. People increasingly demand the opportunity to actually participate with companies and have their opinions matter. This is due to a number of different factors, among them the rise of the web, which significantly shortens communication and feedback cycles, plus naturally accounts for and integrates the input of participants through database technology.

These approaches – in a digital sense – were popularized and perhaps best leveraged by www.amazon.com. Their solution actually represents a meaningful advantage that online stores offer over the traditional, providing a more objective perspective in the decision-making process. However, it is also a solution that suffers from the chicken/egg problem of needing a large enough group of participants in order to remain valid. Indeed, the success of Amazon’s model is as much based on the fact that thousands of people provide feedback and reviews for single products as it is anything else. It maintains objectivity by virtue of that volume.

Initial implementation is rather simple, but it can be difficult to build the participatory community. Even if your company has an existing brick-and-mortar infrastructure, it will not necessarily translate over to building an online community. In-store promotions and other cross-promotional efforts that drive or even incentivize people to visit and participate can create some traction. Of course, it is far more difficult for a digital company that does not have the existing customer base and infrastructure.

Either way, the pitfalls in transitioning from day one to a robust and active community are many. Efforts at creating participation can be undermined by individuals and companies “stuffing” and thus distorting your results. This can either be done by the product developers (who “participate” by championing their products and undermining others) or even by your competitors (who try to subterfuge the entire process). Heck, even rogue teenagers can prove to be a threat. The openness and mindset of a co-creation approach is the very same thing that makes it vulnerable. Yet, if we intend to properly leverage the web, co-creation, participation and even community building are important planks.

Method 3
Easy access to sales/service professionals through appropriate communication strategies and tools

At this point, I suspect that every site has either a contact form or an email address to write with questions or concerns. While this is a necessary – and helpful – tactic, it is simply inadequate when compared to face-to-face, in-store interactions. Allowing people access to call and speak with a live representative while browsing online is an improvement but still rather flat. It creates an unpleasant feeling of urgency that one needs to get all of their questions out in the span of one call because we have been culturally taught that repeated callbacks are “rude.” Some companies – particularly those who began in eCommerce or with a strong background in direct catalog sales – even use instant messenger services. That is an improvement but still not adequate to approximate an in-store interaction. However, taking it one step farther, “personal shopping assistants” (PSAs) make the best use of instant messenger, sales logic patterns and back-end database technology.

And actually, traditional stores are also getting into this business, arming their stores with kiosks and their customers with applications for their personal data devices that use database-driven technology to assist people in finding what will best meet their needs and desires. The Internet cannot compete with the in-store interface, where the physical environment provides a lush multi-sensorial opportunity for active feedback just beyond the monitor or PDA screen.

The application of a “personal shopping assistant” mindset – in lieu of simple online forms or email addresses – is the first step. That means a careful coordination of instant communication (phone or instant message – best is to have the option for both), taking an understanding of what, how and why people buy to create a logic model that drives people through your site and funnel, and implementing successful database applications. However, even if all of this is successfully accomplished, the missing piece remains the multi-sensorial experience provided at a physical store. I will address this obstacle later in this article series.

Method 4
Personalization of content and the customer-salesperson relationship

More specifically, this has to do with creating human relationships and making sure that people feel as though they are being treated in a humane, direct, one-to-one way. That is a far different thing from the “personalization” offered by sites like Yahoo! or Amazon, where databases dutifully push “appropriate” content at us like Sisyphus pushing his stone endlessly up the hill. That is certainly a part of it, but the more important, difficult and often poorly executed side has to do with the interaction between customer and salesperson.

Back in the mid-1990s I purchased a computer from Dell. This was back in the days when Dell and Micron were seen as relative brand equals – which is to say before Dell was a Wall Street darling. This was one of my very first purchases related to online shopping and the first time I was customizing my own computer, so it was a somewhat long sales cycle, and I was a very inquisitive and careful customer. Dell was organized to create a one-to-one sales relationship between their company and the potential purchaser. The first time that I called, I was directed to someone who gave me his name and his personal extension so I could always get him to directly help me. A nice approach, but there were some disconnects in execution:

• Convoluted numeric extension. Not a direct dial number, I would need to dial into a main number and then dial what was a long extension in order to get him. This immediately shifted the “relationship” from being a one-to-one interaction into a reminder that he was a salesperson working for a big company, as opposed to someone trying to help me.
• Difficult to actually get a hold of. Every subsequent time that I called I got a voicemail. Sometimes I got quick callbacks; sometimes I didn’t. Once, I even ended up talking to someone completely different, who actually tried to get me to purchase with him instead of the initial contact, presumably so the commission would shift. Yikes!
• Motivated by his commission, not by my satisfaction. In the process of interacting with the salesperson, at certain points, he let his “act” slip just enough to reinforce that his focus was on “figuring out how to make this sale as big as possible, then close it, then cash my check” as opposed to being motivated by taking care of me and understanding that, through my happiness and satisfaction, he would achieve the financial gain.
• “The morning after” syndrome. He harped on the fact that service was very important, that if I had problems after purchase that I should call him and he would take care of it quickly. Alas, when I did, in fact, have a series of problems, it didn’t work that way. His callbacks were far less timely, and the interest he showed in me before the purchase was notably absent thereafter.

This comes back to basic customer relationship management, which has become a very refined and mature industry. But even today there are problems. Recently Dell (and other companies) brought call centers from India back to the United States because of complaints they were getting about the operators, who were quite obviously reading from scripts, were difficult to understand and were just “going through the motions.”

It is easily within the grasp of eCommerce stores to exceed the personalized, one-to-one connection that traditional stores establish with customers. But doing so requires the careful execution of many factors:

• Service-oriented salespeople. They must be people who like people, are motivated by satisfaction as much or more than sales, and who genuinely strive to connect and be responsive to those that they deal with.
• Emphasis on direct human communication. There must be as many touchpoints between customer and employee as possible (email, phone number, instant message address). Those connectors should be as personal as possible – such as using nicknames instead of proper names, direct dial numbers instead of extensions, among others.
• Fast and well applied technology. Your service professionals need to quickly and easily capture and retrieve specific information about customers from a strong database and well-designed interface. And they need to be sophisticated enough to treat those data points as integrated personal facts, instead of something regurgitated just to “appear” like they are remembering the information
• Focus on effectiveness and not efficiency. Your sales/service employees should not spend all day on the phone. In fact, they should have a fair percentage of down time. If they are engaged with one person, they are not available to others. If they are down, they are accessible. This creates opportunity for human connection, for customers to feel like they themselves are truly the most important person, an individual who is appreciated, listened to and obviously valuable.

The human touch
Synthesizing these different methods, it really comes back to the human touch. Making the interaction as personal and attentive as possible. Creating and locating content in a way that questions and concerns are answered even before they are asked, to simulate the value that an in-store salesperson brings. Assistance being easily available and largely immediate. Opportunities for interaction, feedback and the ability to make a measurable impact on the company/product itself, even as a customer. Each and every one of those goes back to a human touch, to direct and personal contact, to responsiveness that only attention can bring.

A former professor of mine had a favorite quote: “Love means paying attention.” It is a significant piece of wisdom. And it touches on something vitally important to commerce as well: People want to be paid attention to. They want to matter. They want to be unique and individual. They want to be “loved” by the people and organizations that they interact with. If we truly want to be successful in creating some sort of effective “virtual salespeople,” we must pay attention.

Next week, Part 3 of this series will explore another barrier to people choosing eCommerce: people’s desire to physically inspect products before making a purchase.

Author - Dirk Knemeyer

Editor -

Part 1 of 7: Understanding eCommerce
Part 2 of 7: Effective Virtual Salespeople
Part 3 of 7: eCommerce and Experience Design
Part 4 of 7: Mastering Virtual Customer Service
Part 5 of 7: Providing Immediate Gratification
Part 6 of 7: Overcoming Technology Barriers
Part 7 of 7: Next Generation eCommerce

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