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Ecommerce

05 Apr 2019
By Permalink

What goes into a successful checkout experience?

By 05/04/2019

I was shopping for my favourite green powder drink the other day (yes I’m a health nut) with an online store that I was unfamiliar with. And when I didn’t get my confirmation email within a nano-second of hitting Place Order, I completely freaked out. You see, I didn’t know whether or not I could trust them yet and I’d taken a risk!

Online shopping is not new, and yet as we all know, not all online shopping experiences are created equal. And with cart abandonment rates which can run as high as 80%, how do you get someone to trust you and complete the checkout when they have never shopped with you before?

Well firstly, you have to remember that the checkout experience happens way before they actually reach the checkout. Just as you wouldn’t walk up to a stranger and ask them to marry you, you need to impress your customer through the entire experience, and then ask for the sale with an easy and fuss free checkout experience.

Let’s break it down.

Things you need to consider before the checkout page

  • Mobile first design – the highest abandonment rates of checkout occur on mobile phones, if they even get that far in to purchasing.  If your website and your checkout page are well designed and easy to navigate then you are further down the road than most.
  • Include a Shipping calculator – so customers don’t get an unexpected surprise in checkout. There’s nothing more frustrating than browsing through a store, choosing what you want, then heading to checkout and finding that shipping costs just as much as the products you want to order. Make it easy for customers to check shipping costs no matter where they are on the site, as well as offering multiple shipping options.  Unexpected costs in checkout is one of the biggest reasons for cart abandonment.
  • Similarly to shipping, make sure any extra fees and taxes are revealed early and before checkout. Your customers need to be able to calculate the total price before they get to the checkout pages. If your customer is shopping around for the best deal and suddenly discovers your price is just as much as everyone elses but you were being tricky about it – then you will lose trust, credibility AND the sale.
  • Clear refund and exchange policies. Let your customers know that if something DOES go wrong – they have options. This also protects your business by ensuring there are strict guidelines for what can be refunded or exchanged, and under what circumstances.
  • Reviews – if you have lots of great reviews from previous customers on your product pages or on your website, it shows a level of trust from others that helps ease the customers mind. It shows that you will do what you say you will do. This will translate to the checkout.
  • Provide quick, easy customer service options for when your customers are having difficulties checking out or need advice on an item.  These can be things like Live Chat or an easy to locate customer service number.

Where to next?

A successful checkout experience is as friction-free for your customer as possible.  Like we just talked about, if you have a well designed website with enough of the right content then your customer already knows exactly what they are buying, that they have the right size, has the social proof that you are reliable, knows how much it is going to cost including taxes and shipping and is confident of their purchase. So what else could halt their progress and cause them to abandon the purchase?

The checkout pages

Now, there will be people who are always looking for a discount and a coupon (and you may not be a discounting business), or just doing preliminary browsing research to buy it at some later stage.  But how do we keep the others and get them to feel confident enough to complete their purchase?

Now that we are at the checkout page, here are some things you need to consider:

  • Capture their email address as early as possible.  You may be losing up to 80% at the checkout page, but you can get around 15% back by capturing their email address and engaging an abandoned cart campaign. For those people who were just doing research to purchase it later, these reminders will be invaluable.
  • Take away the header and footer and remove any other distractions that will stop someone from completing the checkout.  Once someone has decided to make their purchase, your job is to make it as easy as possible. If they are distracted by unnecessary information then you are complicating the process.
The Checkout Page for OPSM
  • Make sure you have security and encryption in place so a customer feels comfortable sharing their personal and credit card details. You know that little lock symbol in the URL bar? That’s a clear sign to customers that any information they send across is protected by SSL certificates. And, in this day and age when everyone is so concerned about data reaches, this is definitely a must.
  • Trust badges are also an excellent way to convey trust.  A trust badge or trust seal is a symbol placed on your website that ensures your visitors know that you are legitimate and that all their data is collected securely. A trust badge can significantly increase conversions.

  • Partner with trusted affiliates. I always feel better when I see that a company offers payment through PayPal because I know that I am now also protected by PayPal’s rigorous returns policy if anything goes wrong. Partnering with known and verified companies helps bolster the authority of your own business – so bask in that reflected glow!
  • Offer a choice of payment methods. Even how we pay needs to have a variety of options these days because everyone has the method that they like to pay by. These can be things like credit card, Paypal, or Afterpay.
  • Consider where you place, and what you call your coupon code box.  If someone has a coupon code you want then to be able to find it. Also, there are some people who will abandon ship to find a coupon code just because they see a coupon code box and, if they can’t find one, end of sale.  This bargain hunter just may not be your ideal customer anyway (or a loyal one) but it is still worth considering where you put the coupon code box and maybe think of other names for it like “gift code”, so it implies that not everyone gets one.
  • Offer a range of delivery options. Offering same-day or next-day delivery in Metro areas is fast becoming the norm for those companies that truly want to compete.  Offering Express options for a premium and other options at a reduced price or even free can really seal the deal with many customers.
  • Consider offering Click-and-Collect services. Sometimes you just want to secure your items and then pick them up when you are ready. Offering click-and-collect services through stores or Parcelpoint is again becoming the new normal. Remember though, that your customers are expecting immediacy.  If it takes three days for their order to be ready it would have been easier for them to come in and shop for it themselves and takes the convenience and cost saving out of click-and-collect. So make sure before you offer it, you are set up to deliver it.
  • Don’t make your customer create an account. Look, if I don’t know you, and if I haven’t shopped with you before I don’t want to suddenly be your best friend.  The truth is, I may never buy from you again. Having to create an account at checkout is also one of the biggest reasons people abandon their carts. Let people warm up to you, and then give them a reason to create an account like a loyalty program. Once they love and trust you, then creating an account with you makes sense.
  • Keep it simple stu…ahem. If you have a long and complicated checkout process you will lose people. Make the experience as uncomplicated as possible. Ask yourself, for every field you have, if you 100% need to collect that information. That way you can be absolutely sure the information is serving a real purpose and will keep the form as short as possible.  The less fields you have the easier it is to get to the end of the checkout.

Unsure whether or not your checkout is converting well?  Maybe try some A/B testing or contact us at The Playhouse Group, so we can check out your checkout!  See what I did there?

12 Mar 2019
By Permalink

HOW MOBILES ARE REVOLUTIONISING THE BRICKS AND MORTAR EXPERIENCE

By 12/03/2019

We’ve all heard it and we’ve all done it.  Uttered those words “I just don’t have TIME”.  

“What are we going to buy Jeff for his birthday, I don’t have TIME to go to the shops.”  “Let’s do an online grocery shop darling, I just don’t have TIME to get to the supermarket”.

With the advances in eCommerce, our portable buying machines (your mobile phone), and with time becoming even more of a precious commodity, a dark cloud has loomed over bricks-and-mortar retail stores for a while that has meant those still standing have needed to reinvent themselves and do things smarter.

With the advent of marketplaces like Amazon, fitting in ‘shopping’ with our modern overrun lives just makes the convenience of buying things online so appealing.

But now it seems, that the smartest of retailers are turning the mobile phone into their bricks-and-mortar friend and embracing the benefits it has to offer using in-store apps.

While some are still struggling to embrace the omni-channel approach, those who have done it wisely are really reaping the benefits.

So why do in-store apps work so well?

The simple reason is, in-store apps create a more personalised experience for your customer and the more you know about them the more you can personalise that experience.

Starbucks for example, understood the time poor worker and made an app so you can order and pay online and beat all the queues – then all that is left to do is pop in and pick it up from the counter.

Beacons and geo-tagging are a great way to know when your customer is near or in-store and can be used to provide tantalising discounts or reasons to enter the store.

So perhaps you can imagine your customer walking towards their favourite product in-store and just as they are about to reach it, they get pinged with a special for 10% off!  YES PLEASE!

Customers most commonly use in-store apps to find coupons, redeem digital coupons in-store or even to locate sale items or in-store discounts. They also compare prices and view product ratings and reviews.

Store layouts are also a great opportunity to include on an app.

Similarly, using beacon locaters to know when someone is in store for a click n collect or a return is totally invaluable.  You could be getting things ready before they even reach the counter.

Making your loyalty program a part of the app is a no brainer.  Not only are they pinged sales items that you know interest them, they can then see if they qualify for further discounts or free items based on their loyalty points!

However, all this is just the tip of ice-berg for the opportunity for in-store apps and it is really limited to our imaginations.

Why not have a chat-bot built right into your app so that someone can scan the item they are trying on in a change-room and request a new size be brought to them instead of having to try and call for and track down a sales assistant?  Just one idea.

The thing is an in-store mobile app can create a really personal experience for your customer which in turn promotes loyalty.  So working out how to create a true ‘experience’ for your client is totally worth putting your thinking cap on for and one that your customers will actually venture OUT for.

Apps have the opportunity to totally disrupt the way business is done right now and continue to evolve our shopping experience.

If you want to continue to innovate your business, talk to us at The Playhouse Group.

Bonus material

Here are two fun ways that apps have been used to create a real ‘experience’ for shoppers.

Hointer

Hointer totally reinvented the shopping experience.  They have one item of each product on display effectively reducing the need for floor shop space and creating mini-warehouses out the back. You shop by scanning the barcode of the item you want to try via an app on your mobile or tablet.

Your items are then picked from the warehouse and delivered (via robot) to your dressing room within 30 seconds. With this kind of experience, people generally try on more items and buy more clothes. Plus it is a very easy experience. No trying to flag down an assistant whilst half-naked because you got the wrong size!  

Whatever you don’t want goes down the shoot and the rest stays in your shopping cart which you pay for with a swipe of your credit card.

Migros

The Swiss supermarket, Migros, used a Discover feature on their mobile app. Users can scan any of the 5,000+ products in the store to access product information, real-time ratings and reviews, recipes, and nutritional values.

This creates a range of cross-promotional opportunities that mean consumers leave with more items than they originally intended.

15 Feb 2019
By Permalink

HOW TO LAUNCH A LOYALTY PROGRAM

By 15/02/2019

Your business is booming and you’re seeing loads of sales from new customers. You’re doing well, but could you be doing better? My honest answer is… yes. Now that your business is established, your goal is to turn those new customers into repeat customers. The fact is that most businesses get 80% of their revenue from 20% of their returning customers. Before we continue, let me hit you with some quick stats:

  • Loyal customers buy more often
    The likelihood of purchase increases each visit from 27% to 45% to 54%.
  • Loyalty customers spend more
    A repeat customer will typically spend 3-5 times more than a new customer.
  • Loyal customers refer more business
    A customer who has purchased from you 10 times refers 3 times more people who then convert 7 times higher than traditional paid campaigns.

Do your customers have a reason to be loyal to your business? While you think about it, let me tell you that after years of working in the industry, I know that an exciting and robust loyalty program is the best way to gain and retain customers.

The next question is, what kind of program is best for your business? Look at what you are trying to achieve with the program and set up key benchmarks that align with your goals.

For example, you could measure:

  • Sales revenue
  • Average order value
  • Customer lifetime value
  • Purchase frequency
  • Cart abandon rates
  • Customer retention rates

Once you’re clear on your KPIs, you can look at the type of program that will best achieve your needs.

Types of Loyalty Programs

1. Points Loyalty System

This program suits businesses encouraging frequent short-term purchases like cafes, pharmacies, or massage parlours. It’s great because it encourages repeat spending by working towards a goal. However, be careful of discouraging customers if the number of visits/purchases needed is too high.

2. Loyalty Card Program

If you want to inspire frequent, high-value purchases, then this is the program for you. This type of program is common with larger chains like Coles, Woolworths, and Myer. Members feel special when they get access to exclusive discounts, coupons and points – just make sure they remember to bring their card with them!

3. Cash-Back Loyalty Program

For businesses that want to encourage frequent, high-commitment shoppers, then rebate/cash-back programs are the way to go. A well-known rebate program that you probably know about is FlyBuys. If you use it, you’ll understand that these sorts of programs are easy to understand but expiry dates on points and lack of instant gratification can be off-putting to many.

4. Mobile Loyalty Program

A mobile loyalty program is where all businesses should be heading, in my opinion. A lot of innovative businesses (Sephora Insider, Starbucks and AMEX Plenti Rewards) are adopting this tech – and it’s no surprise when you consider the amount of data and insight it gives you.

It’s time to go mobile

It’s 2019 and although many businesses still use physical loyalty cards (or even those punchcards they used to have at Starbucks), the days of these wallet-stuffers are numbered. At The Playhouse Group, we’re seeing an increasing shift in the market, with companies migrating from printed cards to cloud-hosted system and eWallets.

The cloud-based loyalty space is crowded and is growing rapidly. That’s why it’s crucial that you step up your game with a solution that covers your customers both online AND offline.

We’ve recently run RFI’s for clients like ILR and Camerahouse to help future clients (like yourself) make an informed purchasing decision. So, what are you waiting for? Get in touch today.

05 Oct 2018
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SALESFORCE, SIRI, AND VOICE SEARCH

By 05/10/2018

At the recent Dreamforce event in San Francisco, Marc Benioff (Salesforce CEO) announced that Apple’s Siri would now be available in Salesforce, exposing the backend to power apps and utilise their Einstein functionality.

Seeing two tech giants unite is exciting and with the increased use of “voice search” means this new feature couldn’t have come at a better time.

Below are some stats highlighting the rise in “voice search” –

  • 30% of searches will be done without a screen by 2020 (Source: Gartner, 2016)
  • There were one billion voice searches made in January 2018 (Source: Alpine.AI, 2018)
  • 72% of voice-activated speaker owners say their devices are often used as part of their daily routine (Source: Google, 2018)
  • By 2019, 39% of millennials will use voice-enabled digital assistants (Source: eMarketer, 2017)

What is Einstein?
You can read more about Einstein here but in short, Salesforce’s Einstein is a layer of artificial intelligence that delivers predictions and recommendations based on your unique business processes and customer data. You can then use those insights to automate responses and actions, which will help improve your staff’s productivity and enhance the customer experience.

How will this benefit retailers?
There are a number of ways Australian retailers will benefit from this link up –

  • Smart apps will be able to make recommendations based on the customers previous habits and at the same time, provide “shoppers like you” functions
  • Customers are increasingly using voice search for day to day things (weather/events) but to quick search for specific products at stores further improves the shopping experience
  • From a customer service perspective, staff are now able to record feedback that will be passed back into Salesforce as notes helping to grow your understanding of the customer
  • As per the Apple website – “Native Salesforce iOS apps for business: Salesforce, working with Apple, will redesign the Salesforce Mobile App to give customers rich experiences exclusively on iOS, with unique Apple capabilities such as Siri Shortcuts, Face ID, Business Chat and more.”

As previously discussed on our website, the evolving relationship between eCommerce and Home Devices is growing stronger and this new partnership will further influence how you and your customers interact.

28 Sep 2018
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SHOP WINDOWS AND HOMEPAGES

By 28/09/2018

If you were to walk by a shop on your morning commute every day, and the display window looked exactly the same for a month, you’d start to form an opinion that there were no new products, no special offers, and no reason to head in outside of necessity.

Companies employ Visual Merchandisers for a reason, they help entice you into the shops with creative and elaborate displays that capture the attention of passers-by enticing them in. That approach has to be the same for your website!

Managing a homepage needs to be the perfect execution of strategy and technology. In this instance, one informs the other and will help determine how you can keep the homepage refreshed and interesting.

Out of the Box features
Depending on your current tech, there are a number of out of the box features that you can switch on, that will work to refresh your homepage –

  • Magento: Take advantage of customer segmentation that serves different products/carousels based on known customer behaviour
  • Drupal: Personalise the experience for returning customers
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud: Utilise Predictive Intelligence to help make product recommendations using AI

For each of the above examples, you can dedicate retail space on your homepage, allowing the platforms to adjust and recommend products on your behalf. Customer trends and behaviours change, so having recommendations based on the “wisdom of the crowd” is a great way to provide relevant content in a timely manner.

Plugins
Tools like Visual Website Optimiser, Optimizely and Hotjar provide you with the means to A/B test your website. You can interrogate customer behaviour and build up a picture of what expressions, content, and colours are increasing presonses to CTAs or increasing basket sizes.

Strategy
With strategy, you need to have a good understanding of your current limitations and look at ways to keep the homepage looking regularly updates. The use of a Content Calendar is an excellent way of managing key elements of the page ensuring that you are regularly reviewing what is live and what can be updated. Running regular campaigns that are communicated through carousels or other means, ensure that the homepage doesn’t remain “static” for too long.

We firmly believe that a homepage’s content should evolve and update on a regular basis. There is no point providing an excellent offline experience and then having a website that doesn’t mirror that commitment. If you need support with either Strategy or Technology, reach out on the form below.

21 Sep 2018
By Permalink

GET THERE WITH MIDDLEWARE

By 21/09/2018

Marketing Managers and IT Managers will be aware of this all too well, but sometimes the systems you rely on to manage your eCommerce operations, just don’t connect.

As we’ve discussed previously, customisation can provide short term gains but add risk long term yet the importance of integrated systems is absolutely essential.

Finding the right middleware solution means your business can resolve complex integration issues without forcing development on either of your platforms, that could impact on their upgrade paths.

What is Middleware?
Middleware acts as a direct communication between applications and databases where there isn’t a standard connection between them. This means you are able to manage the flow of information in both directions to ensure a single voice of truth.

What are some examples?
A very simplistic middleware example is Zapier. This allows a User to take a basic function (email) and use information provided on a form, to be uploaded into a CRM. In instances where your CRM is standalone, this is a quick and efficient way to get the necessary information without manual intervention and copy/paste.

More complex applications of middleware can be taking information from standalone POS systems, and integrating them into your eCommerce platform. There are a variety of systems out there that can assist, with Mulesoft and Jitterbit being two examples.

Benefits
There are a variety of benefits to using middleware, see below for some examples –

  • No requirement for complex development between unconnected systems
  • Usually they are cloud based which means no further costs for self-hosting
  • They are incredibly flexible, so you can connect multiple systems together using process flows and normalisation of data
    • Linking Business Intelligence / POS / eCommerce for example

Considerations
When choosing the right platform, you need to have a clear understanding of the systems you have in place and where the pain points are. Middleware comes with a variety of pricing, end point users, licenses, and volume of integrations – all of these will determine which product is suitable for you and your business needs.

At the Playhouse Group, we love complex integration projects and finding practical solutions. If you are currently facing issues with connecting multiple platforms, we’d love to hear from you and so we can provide recommendations, support and implantation. Reach out on the form below for more information.

13 Sep 2018
By Permalink

CONTENT IS KING

By 13/09/2018

Online Retailers are constantly under pressure to produce rich, effective, and engaging content for their websites. With the speed that trends change online, staying ahead of the curve is a challenge and one that can be made even harder if you aren’t using the correct CMS or the right resource internally.

Outdated CMS
With a lot of Clients we meet, invariably we’ll work together on platform selection. Typically companies have retained old tech due to heavy customisation and integration with existing systems. Consequently, though the status quo is maintained, restrictions on what can be achieved start to mount up. Outdated platforms tend not to include –

  • Marketing Automation
  • Drag and Drop landing page creation
  • Flexible templates
  • Approval processes
  • Personalisation
  • Ability to roll out Mobile First Designs
  • Links to Social

Trying to stand out from a saturated market without being able to utilise even some of the above, can be an uphill struggle.

Speed to Market
A knock on effect of not being able to use the above features, can severely impact on your speed to market. An outdated CMS will typically use either HTML blocks or WYSIWYG blocks. From a resourcing perspective, you start having to find new staff who are competent marketeers who are competent in HTML to release campaigns. Modern platforms mean you can focus on bringing more marketing driven users who can quickly pick up simplistic “drag and drop” processes, instead having to spend money with 3rd parties to ensure deadlines are met.

Strategy
Not having a strategy in place when updating and managing content on your website can have a detrimental impact on repeat customers.

Ultimately, a website that is refreshing carousels, product images, category/subcategory (for example) on a regular basis are always going to look fresh and interesting to regular visitors. Thinking more broadly around different ways campaigns can be promoted throughout the website, is a great way to sure your message is getting across and building up interest in a new product. As mentioned above, inflexible templates lead to cookie-cutter promotions that typically use a header image, body copy, and terms and conditions. Utilising built in functions of modern platforms means you are able to break away from “landing page fatigue” and really start to give each new campaign an individual feel.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be running an event in Sydney talking about content success stories using Acquia/Drupal, if you are keen to know more and would like to attend, please reach out to us on the form below.

07 Sep 2018
By Permalink

DO YOUR CUSTOMERS HAVE A REASON TO BE LOYAL?

By 07/09/2018

We’ve touched on loyalty a number of times this year and cannot stress the importance of making your customers feel valued. A loyal customer, or brand advocate, will come back time and time again if you continue to provide excellent customer service and offers to entice further transactions.

In our previous blog, we talked about “Golden Records” and how it can lead to golden opportunities. In this instance, great customer data can empower loyalty programs.

There are many ways you can approach loyalty via your website, and these will differ depending on whether you are a “pure play” or not. Both present different challenges, and typically companies who sell online/offline must find a way to unify a customer’s data regardless of how they purchase.

Typically loyalty schemes are points based using physical cards and a unique identifier, meaning customers can collect their points regardless of how they are shopping. The use of mobile apps to track your points is on the rise too with Coles and Virgin Australia providing excellent examples.

From a technical point of view, there are now a wide range of modules that you can use with your Magento or Drupal instances that can add value to your website and ensure that customers have a simple scheme they can use.

Simply put, today’s shoppers expect to be rewarded for their loyalty to your brand. As a result brands are investing into loyalty programs more and more but before simply jumping in, there are a number of key considerations.

The biggest challenges you’ll face are around strategy and data. If you fail to execute the loyalty program in a way that benefits the customer, they’ll start to look elsewhere. Requiring customers to manually input their receipts as an example, will reduce the likely uptake from regular consumers. Likewise, running a loyalty program based on bad data will cause operational headaches. Analysing customer data will be a challenge initially, but it’s vital that you have the resources in place to be able to do so.

Promoting a loyalty scheme and using target campaigns is great, but if you don’t understand your customer and are pushing products to them they’ve never shown interest in, or worse still, already own, is a negative experience.

For an effective roll out, consider –

  • Simplicity: over complicating sign up or ongoing use, will turn customers away
  • Educate: give customers a feature and a benefit for signing up, simply asking if they want to join isn’t enough
  • Fun: gamifying the approach or using a social element is great to encourage engagement
  • Reward: don’t run a loyalty program if there aren’t genuine benefits to the customer or to your business.

If you’re looking to roll out a loyalty program but aren’t sure on the best approach, reach out to us on the form below and we can help you with scoping through to implementation, and ongoing support and recommendations.

30 Aug 2018
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GOLDEN RECORDS LEAD TO GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES

By 30/08/2018

Consumers today expect personalised customer service. Not choosing to focus on this experience will cost you customers and revenue as a result. Creating this experience can sometimes be challenging, but the benefits outweigh the work required to clean your data.

Multichannel customer service points means that customers may communicate with your business in a variety of ways. This can be online or offline and include instore, social media, live chat, email, telephone and more. So aggregating all this data into a single view of a customer is one of the most crucial tasks that retailers need to undertake.

A single view of customer, or a “Golden Record”, means having all information known about a single customer in one place that all customer service teams can access. This then makes it easier to personalise information to that customer, whether for marketing purposes, answering enquiries or dealing with a complaint.

Other benefits that come from being able to collect, aggregate and analyse data and provide better customer service includes more loyal customers, higher conversion rates, greater longevity of that customer and even word-of-mouth referrals.

Cleaning your data
There’s a challenge with collecting all this data and creating a personalised experience, and that’s marketing from a database with dirty data. Examples include data that contains errors, is misleading, incorrect, duplicated, incomplete, non-integrated, violates business rules or is out of date.

Dirty data can have a number of negative impacts on your eCommerce business. Incorrect or outdated information can lead to wasted marketing efforts and lost revenue. It makes it much harder to successfully target the right customers with the right information, wasting company resources and potentially alienating the very customers for which you are trying to create a personalised experience for.

There are a variety of approaches you can take to clean up data and the difference between it mostly being automated to being cleaned manually is dependant on how you currently store that information. Talk to us to find out which is the best strategy for your circumstances.

How can you keep data updated?
A typical strategy is incentivising your customer to come back to your website, or in store, and refresh/update their information – working with your store staff to check this each time can really help improve data quality – but give them a reason to do so.

For example, if they are active on social media and use this as a means of accessing your site, you can target them through various social platforms. Offer discounts, rewards, and serve up relevant content that will encourage them to return and keep updating their personal information. This will not only ensure your data is up to date, but it gives your business the chance to create long-term customer relationships with clients who trust you to deliver what they need.

Another approach is offering them the ability to keep key information updated, in Salesforce Marketing Cloud for example you can provide them with access to a Profile/Preference Centre which allows the user to manually refresh their information. In Magento for example, providing signed in account users with prompts to check their data is another effective approach.

Explain your use of their data
It is important to be clear with customers and let them know how you will be using their data. This can give them peace of mind, and they will be more willing to share their information.

Customers these days don’t like being sold to. They want to enjoy an experience. Not knowing your customer intimately will mean you risk losing them. By explaining how you intend to provide them with timely, relevant advertising, can be critical in turning a golden record into a golden opportunity.

If you would like to discuss strategies in creating a Single View of Customer records or other data issues with The Playhouse Team, you can contact us on the form below, or via email or on Facebook, or on Twitter, or on LinkedIn. You get the idea!

24 Aug 2018
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IMPROVING YOUR MOBILE EXPERIENCE

By 24/08/2018

Truth be told reader, I finalised this blog using my mobile phone while travelling to the office. Like you, the mobile has become an essential part of my everyday life and it’s use spans the personal and professional spectrum. Shopping for birthdays and anniversaries (home and abroad) is usually conducted on the way in, so finding sites that make the approach simple is important.

eCommerce and mobile devices are made for each other yet a surprising number of Australian websites aren’t giving that customer preference the attention it deserves.

Mobile continues to gain in importance
For eCommerce site traffic is typically 50% (or higher) from mobile devices and that figure only looks to be increasing. On Cyber Monday 2017, 60% of sales were made through mobile and tablet devices in the first three hours, which was significantly higher than sales via a desktop.

A poor mobile experience can cause consumers to abandon your site and look elsewhere. Page load speeds or lack of mobile optimisation, can cost you money on a daily basis. Recent data from Think with Google revealed that as loading times increase from one to 10 seconds, the probability of your customer leaving increases by a staggering 123%…

Users can even become frustrated if they have to zoom in to read text or rotate the screen. In a nutshell, we demand the most user-friendly experience, offering the best and fastest results.

What are some quick wins examples?
There are some simple and effective changes you can make to your website (without a complete redesign) that can benefit your customer.

Populating forms

  • Field specific keyboard layout changes are a simple way to reduce clicks
  • Android and iOS have a variety of native options that can be displayed via simple code
  • When requesting a customer to populate an email address, you can ensure the keyboard displays .com as a quick button.
  • When requesting a mobile number, you can choose to display a numeric keyboard.
  • Even something as simple as selecting a user friendly “calendar” element can make a world of difference to people entering in when they expect delivery.
  • Consider whether every field is essential when asking for information

Checkout

  • Enabling PayPal Checkout is an excellent way to streamline the payment process.
  • It reduces the need to find your credit card and type in all the details
  • If you aren’t using PayPal, providing customers with the ability to take a photo of the card you are looking to use speeds up the process too

Navigation

  • There isn’t the luxury of space for mobile, so look to see what is essential to present in your main navigation, and what can be dropped to a secondary navigation
  • Keep search visible and easily accessible
  • Consider the impact of a sticky nav if you are also advertising on your website – how much of the page is being obscured

If you are finding that customers aren’t converting as highly on mobile as they are on desktop, then some of these quick wins could help. Drop us an email on the form below so we can start the conversation on how to improve your mobile experience.