Customer Churn Articles - Personalics

Email Marketing: 5 Rules You Should Question

Ohad Shperling — Wed, 30 Mar 2016 00:21:53 +0000

Email messages. Every day each of us receives an average of 122 of them, according to a 2015 study by market research firm Radicati Group.

It’s harder than ever to get people’s attention, so you pay careful attention to email marketing experts and follow the best practices for email marketing that they recommend. In fact, we tend to accept conventional wisdom uncritically – with so many experts telling us this or that, how could it be wrong?

But as with most things, conventional wisdom about email marketing isn’t always right. That’s because while the email marketing environment is evolving, conventional wisdom isn’t. Best practices are what worked in the past – in a world where email was confined to a PC and work hours. And because they worked they’re now everyone’s practices.

But much has changed. First there’s that growing avalanche of email, and we become ever-more sophisticated in filtering out what we don’t want. Second, email now comes to us on an increasing variety of mobile devices. Some rules no longer hold true. Breaking them, in fact, can sometimes give you an edge.

5 conventional rules about email marketing to think about breaking.

1. The bigger your list, the better. Not necessarily. Of course a bigger list of qualified contacts is better than a small one. But an untargeted, big list may not achieve your business goals. A small list with qualified contacts, people who have made a positive indication that they’re interested in what you’re offering and hearing from you, will deliver better returns on your email marketing efforts. A well-qualified mailing list also reduces the likelihood of annoying recipients and ending up in the spam folder.

And it should go without saying, don’t buy email lists. Email from businesses you don’t know and have no interest in are as unwelcome as those “Russian women want to date you” spam-mails. Good lists grow slowly because businesses that have them aren’t trading or selling them. For instance, Hubspot.com offers some straightforward ways to build your email list without leaving a trail of ‘unsubscribes’ – or worse, an entry on TheSpamDiaries blog.

2. Lots of offers drives engagement. No. Offers that match the recipient’s interest, drive engagement. For example, if a customer looked at an out-of-stock item on a recent visit, alert them when it’s in stock. Wish or preference lists are ideal for letting customers tell you what they’re interested in (and it will probably reduce the number of abandoned carts, too).

Build relationships with new customers by only emailing them promotions for products they’re predicted to like. But use common sense. If someone bought an electronic device yesterday, they’re probably not buying an identical one today. You can occasionally expose existing customers to products they haven’t bought before, but this shouldn’t be random.

3. Use a person’s name. Not if you don’t know them and they’ve never done business with you. Personalizing by name is a double-edged sword. That’s because people are increasingly worried about who has information about them and how it’s being used. A Temple University Fox School of business study reported people respond positively to personalization that’s not easily discernable, but negatively when personalization is obvious. Ninety-five percent of customers responded negatively to an email addressed to them by name; possibly because it makes people feel like strangers are watching them as in the following cold-call email example:

This example doubles down on the inappropriately personal tone with phony compliments. It’s manipulative, and what’s more, would make some recipients feel like they’re being stalked. If Joe does reply, perhaps thinking this is someone he met at a conference or meeting, once he realizes that it’s all a come-on to get a chance to make a sales pitch, the chances of Mr. Smith making a sale are probably less than zero. While psychologists tell us that we like the sound of own names and unconsciously respond to flattery, empirical experience teaches us that most people have an equally predictable reaction when they realize they’ve been tricked and manipulated – anger and retaliation, in this case an entry on the “block” list.

Do personalize by products. The Temple study I referenced earlier showed that a personalized product offering based on past purchases was favorably received by 98 percent of its recipients. But also use common sense, and avoid repetitive product recommendations. Dynamic content can tailor each email to each recipient. This is where personalization software can make your email campaigns smarter.

In the following example, audio e-book retailer Audible keeps in contact with subscribers who have unused subscription credits by offering them a bonus – something that will keep them engaged with the service and more likely to remain subscribers.

4. Tuesday through Thursday mornings is the best time to send email. Not Anymore. Consumers are increasingly active on mobile devices, especially outside of standard 9-5 working hours. Tablets and smartphones enable a lot of engagement at other times throughout the workday as well as nights and weekends – and while they’re doing something else. Sending your campaigns when no one else is – say, Saturday morning at 10 a.m. – can be to your advantage.

A 2014 Salesforce.com report on mobile behavior found that 91% of those surveyed read email at least once a day on a mobile device, and 65% reported using their tablet while watching TV at least once per day. That’s supported by data showing that tablet usage peaks between 9 p.m. and 12 a.m., shown in the following chart:

(Source: Salesforce.com)

Salesforce’s data also showed higher tablet use Saturday and Sunday.

Experian’s 2012 email benchmark study reinforces this, reporting that email sent between 8 p.m. and 12 a.m. got the highest response rate, shown in the next chart:Although less email is sent on weekends than during the work week, email sent on Saturdays and Sundays gets the most opens, clicks, transaction rates and revenue per email, as this chart shows:

(Source: Experian Marketing Services)

Marketing Sherpa found similar results, reporting that 38% of email is opened on Saturday – compared with 25 percent on Tuesday.

5. Fancy templates are more likely to get your email noticed. Another ‘not necessarily.‘ Logos, and a lot of graphics don’t increase likelihood of being opened. It can even increase just the likelihood of going straight to Gmail’s new “promotions” file. In a world of smarter Gmail, plainer can be better.

The problem with over-designed templates and graphics is that they are advertising themselves first. Personal and important emails look pretty plain. Although tools like Constant Contact and Mailchimp make it possible to do a lot of things visually with your email, keep it simple and use design to focus on the message, as Adaptive Media does in this example:

Adaptive clearly communicates its message, except for one important piece. Since the company is actively targeting LiveRail users, that message should be in the subject line, or at least at the top.

The real message here is that you always need to test and understand what’s working best for your specific audience. For each best practice you read about, or each hypothesis you have, split test your audience and look at the results. Remember that your brand is unique. And your audience is buying from you, partly because of that uniqueness. Do you think a fancy template will help reinforce that uniqueness? If so, split your group. Send half an email in the new template and the other half an email with simple format. Measure what gets results. Do You think that using customers’ names will drive higher engagement? Test with a subset of customers and see what the results are.

Certainly, your own taste comes into the equation, but that can may lead you to the wrong conclusions about what your audience is actually responding to — remember that you’re not marketing to yourself. The best marketers don’t jump to conclusions. They’re constantly developing new hypotheses, testing them and measuring to see what works best.

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Multi-channel customer experience: still failing

Ohad Shperling — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 09:41:00 +0000

A bad customer experience. We all know what it feels like. The blow-a-gasket, go-ballistic, hit-the-ceiling, foam-at-the-mouth rage after an encounter with customer “service” that feels more like a scheme for customer derangement. And automation only makes the customer experience worse, as this humorous video from Solaris Media Ltd shows:

It makes you want to tear your hair out. Now, I don’t have any hair on my head because I shave it. But even if I didn’t, I still wouldn’t have that much hair because I have to call vendors’ customer service a lot.

It’s not as if nobody has ever identified the qualities and methods that go into consistently excellent customer experience. Zappos’ founder Tony Hsieh wrote a book, Delivering Happiness, re-defining what an excellent customer experience looks like.

Too bad many companies haven’t read Tony’s book. And even if they read it, they are far from implementing it. In fact, sometimes it feels like some businesses haven’t updated their customer service practices since the automobile replaced the horse-drawn cart. And I still feel like tearing out my non-existent hair when customer representatives – usually those from big service providers – telecom, electricity, cable TV, Internet providers – seem to be completely unfamiliar with even the most fundamental information about my history with their brands across channels.

Like the man in the video above, I’m angry because they don’t “see me.” They don’t get the picture of the experience I’ve encountered with the organization across channels.

Here are 11 examples of customer service experiences that make me want to blow my top; especially because all of them have solutions

Problem: Making me describe the problem over and over and over and over …

I explain my problem to Rep A, who transfers the call to Rep B, who asks me to explain the problem all over again. Simple solution: Implement a unified realtime CRM system for logging every customer encounter and categorizing it so that Rep B knows what the issue is before speaking with me. I wouldn’t mind – in fact I would be delighted – if Rep B asked, “please give me a moment to read the log of your previous conversation with Rep A to catch up.”

Problem: Expecting customers to remember order numbers.

If I buy something online and immediately call customer service, the system doesn’t recognize that I’ve just bought something online, and makes me identify the transaction with an order ID. Without that number, the customer service representative has to search for this order. I don’t have the number at my fingertips, because – guess what – I’ve been waiting on the phone for 20 minutes, and I’m doing other things while waiting – such as driving. Simple solution: Use the phone number I called from – the same one I entered when I placed the order – to find my order automatically. A smart CRM system would automatically pull up my recent order in front of the customer representative.

Problem: Continuing to sell after customers have bought.

I’ve just purchased a washing machine online. But an email / retargeting ad / Facebook post is still ‘chasing’ me across the Web everywhere I go with the same item. And it’s not a vacuum cleaner, which I might be interested in as a bundle because I’m a cleaning junkie. It’s an ad showcasing a washing machine, and I just purchased one. I’m not likely to want to buy another one for many years. Simple solution: Integrate CRM with all remarketing channels: email, including social media, sms, and mobile push.

Problem: Making returning customers re-enter billing and shipping information for new purchases.

When I log in, instead of confirming a short security question, I have to re-enter all my billing details from scratch. Simple Solution: Learn from Amazon’s ‘one-click’ checkout experience. Use an auto-complete widget for the billing form.

Problem: Failing to provide chat or email connections to customer service.

The only way I can ask questions or report problems is to call the company’s maddening Interactive Voice Response system (IVR). This means I can’t contact the company conveniently. I have to wait and listen to their endless IVR messages about how much they appreciate my business. They just don’t appreciate it enough not to waste my time. Really, really simple solution: Add an email address to the customer service page – and assign someone to respond to the messages.

Problem: Doubling down on the frustrating IVR customer experience.

While my frustration grows about treading water on “hold,” the voice coming out of the IVR relentlessly hypes the latest promotion, “Spring in Bratislava – Europe’s Best-Kept Secret” . Even if I were interested in a trip, I wouldn’t book one while I can’t get an answer to a simple question. Instead I have to endure these ads, and am about as likely to book the Bratislava trip as I am to book “Vladimir Putin’s Crimean Holiday.” Simple Solution: If I’ve made a transaction through any channel, the CRM / ERP system should be able to predict my likely reasons for calling, and take me to a relevant menu. And, if none of those choices meet my need, directly to a customer representative. The following IVR script would delight me so much that I would rave about your brand to everyone I speak with: “Hi, we see that, you have just done X with us. Are you inquiring about X?”

Problem: Failing to quickly identify my preferred local branch office and route the call directly, even if I’m a regular buyer.

They have my address. They clearly have their branches’ addresses. But they don’t connect the dots to route my call properly. Simple Solution: If I’m a repeat customer, who has purchased from a local branch before, my mobile number stored in the CRM system, along with the purchase history from that local branch. So a more effective IVR script would go something like: “If you want to inquire something specific from your preferred local branch such as branch X, press 2.”

Problem: Failing to give service representatives visibility of my history with the company.

Even if they load my order ID, they can’t see whether I purchased before, have been a loyal fan, or qualify for a certain deal. Every conversation with a customer representative feels like a first date. What a waste.Simple Solution: The unified CRM system I talked about earlier. When my call is routed to a representative, display the customer information that goes with that phone number or an account number that I entered earlier. A smarter solution would predict what I’m likely to be interested in and display those special offers and bundles to the representative. My shopping patterns are already in the database. Big data is about turning this information into insight.

Problem: Making irrelevant product recommendations.

I’m not likely to pay attention to complementary cross-sell or up-sell products that are irrelevant. If I just booked “Acapulco Spring Break: Booze, Boogie and Babes” in Cancun, chances are I’m not interested in “Photography Month in Bratislava.” But I may be very interested in hotel room upgrade or a tequila tasting. Simple Solution: Use a smart product recommendation system, which can be easily integrated with your CRM and marketing channels: email, social media, sms, customer service center and others.

Problem: Explaining why you can’t do “it” instead of just doing “it.”

For example, I have a mortgage, checking account, and credit cards with one financial services company. I expect to be able to find out the most recent payment received on my mortgage, the last transaction that cleared in my checking account, and the balance on my credit card in one call. Instead of getting information, I get an explanation of why I can’t get that information. That explanation is that these are three separate business units, each of which has a different information system. Another example: I’m using a payment processing system for my business, and suddenly, when I can’t process customer payments – and therefore can’t ship product. I get an excuse that the system is down for an indefinite period. Simple Solution: Address internal systems and operational problems and empower service representatives to “solve” problems – not just “respond” to them.

Problem: Finger-pointing instead of problem-solving.

Many of businesses’ core services require integrate multiple functions – for example, event management and payment processing – and sell the functionality as a package. But when I have a problem with part of the solution – say, credit card processing – customer service tells me they don’t support that functionality and I have to call the payment processing company. This is a vendor that I had no choice about. It has no customer service phone number. The only online “help” is a set of FAQs that link to documentation on how to use the API. Then my unsatisfactory vendor gilds the lily by emailing me daily to sign up for conferences, classes, webinars and how to improve … customer experience. It’s a bad customer experience trifecta that will have me looking for a new way to do things – two apps that work. Simple Solution: Implement a Single Point of Contact (SPOC) service model for managing service calls from end to end.

I’m sure you’ve had at least a few of these infuriating customer experiences.

A lot of people share my frustration, according to ADS Marketing. A study by customer service software provider ZenDesk reveals some statistics to think about:

16 percent of angry customers vent their frustrations on social media after a bad customer service experience,– but only 8 percent will post about a good customer experience.

60 percent of customers say they are strongly influenced by a company’s ratings and customer comments on social media sites

35 percent say they stop buying from a company after a single negative experience with customer service.

42 percent of respondents said their biggest frustration with customer experience was repeating their problems to multiple reps.

Why is customer experience still like this in 2015, when integrated software systems should be the standard for doing business? And at a time when “software is eating the world.”

My take is that poor customer experience is more prevalent in monopoly markets and less so in competitive markets.

In monopoly markets, customers don’t have choices. If a company is the only provider, customers have no choice but to buy from that supplier, regardless of how poor the customer experience is.

The more competitive a market becomes, the more alternatives are available to the shopper. The more alternatives, the higher shoppers’ expectations are for a seamless customer experience across channels.

The only way to deliver better customer experience across a wide scale of services is to introduce competition in the market. This forces businesses to integrate systems and deliver an excellent customer experience across channels, or else see customers replace those vendors with their competitors.

It seems to me that many times customer experience boils down to regulation. The lighter the burden of regulation, and the lower the barrier for more market entry, the more alternatives will become available for customers. More companies will be forced to deliver better customer experience. (If you want a better customer experience, perhaps the first thing to think about is how you vote.)

As new competitors jump into the market, it’s simply good business to deliver proactive, instead of reactive, customer service. You need a campaign to identify and fix weaknesses in your customer experience before enraged customers start a social media campaign against you.

Not everyone would describe his or her business as “delivering happiness,” the way Tony Hsieh does. And even Hsieh is clear about the business benefit of his happiness strategy. Great customer experience can be a strong business advantage, and one that lowers costs overall.

Have you had notable experiences of bad customer experiences? Please share!

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Ultimate Guide for Cart Abandonment

Ohad Shperling — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 21:00:30 +0000

So you have built the best eCommerce site experience you could think of. You may have captured a unique eCommerce niche, developed an attractive brand, fine-tuned your copy, and polished the site design. You’ve implemented some A/B testing and noticed an improvement in conversion. But why is cart abandonment rate so high and conversion so low? And more importantly, what you can do about it?

You are not alone. In fact, the following benchmarks show cart abandonment rates are high across sectors:
1. According to SmartInsights, average visitor-to-purchase eCommerce conversion rates sit between 1% and 6% depending on device, geography, and channel.
2. According to Bayard Institute, for those shoppers adding product to the cart and abandoning, the average shopping cart abandonment rates is 68% across industries. This number is the average calculated among a number of resources who have published their statistics on eCommerce cart abandonment. With such a high abandonment number, eCommerce sites have to take action to re-engage with hesitant shoppers.
3. According to Formisimo, the trend toward shopping cart abandonment seems to be increasing over the past decade. An average of 60% cart abandonment in 2006 has grown to 68% in 2014. However, since 2014, the cart abandonment average is decreasing once again. This is probably because of an increase in the number of conversion optimization techniques being used.

Next, let’s look at the reasons that shoppers abandon their carts. Let’s look at the graph below, then provide an explanation and examples for each reason.

http://www.designforfounders.com/shopping-cart-abandonment

1. Shoppers expect lower (or zero) shipping cost:
According to this BI Intelligence report, shipping costs are the #1 reason for cart abandonment. This Statista report cites that the number one reason for leaving a site without buying is ‘unexpected’ shipping costs showing up at the last minute of the checkout process before payment.

What can you do about it?
A. Provide free shipping up front.
Zappos is famous for providing free shipping to everyone, so they have eliminated this conversion killer upfront.

Zappos free shipping

B. Provide free shipping above a certain expenditure or only for members.
Nike is transparent about their free shipping option on purchases of over $150 or to subscribed members.

Nike+ free shipping

If shipping is too costly for your business because gross margins are low, and providing free shipping to everyone will incur significant losses for the sale, you may want to look closely at your analytics and examine whether providing free shipping exclusively to new visitors may end up being profitable in the long run. For instance, if providing free shipping turns a visitor into a happy customer who ends up trusting your brand and purchasing a number of times from your site (while paying extra for the shipping on subsequent orders) then the actual cost of sponsoring free shipping for these new visitors, during the first purchase can be negated.

In other words, if free shipping is so important to first time visitors, and a significant segment of your first time shoppers end up buying more and becoming profitable customers in the long run, you’ve just found a profitable way of providing free shipping to these new visitors.

2. Shoppers were researching for total cost:
The second reason in the survey was that shoppers were not ready to buy yet. They were comparing total costs on various websites and wanted to know the final price including shipping, for comparison purposes.

What can you do about it?
A. If your store offers commodity products that can also be found on other stores, then make sure to use a price comparison service to adjust your prices according to changes in the market so that your pricing is always competitive.
B. Present total cost as early as possible. This creates a sense of trust and transparency. You don’t want the user to feel surprised. Here you can see how eBay is giving all the information about costs, delivery and payment up front.

eBay item cost description

C. Incentivize first-time visitors with an additional discount via a pop-up.

Fabric.com 10% off pop-up offer for first-time customers

This fabric.com pop-up invites first time visitors to leave their email in exchange for receiving 10% discount.
More advanced pop-up functionality would use cookie-based data in order to only show up for first time users (meaning it would not show to users who had signed up before). In addition, an advanced pop-up functionality would use exit-intent technology. Meaning – it would not “disturb” the user until the point when the user’s mouse is ‘moving towards’ the closure icon.

3. Shoppers use the cart as a ‘save for later’ feature:
Sometimes, shoppers are not ready to purchase just yet and would like to keep their preferences for later.
Whether the reason is price comparison, or just saving the products for later consideration, shoppers use the cart as a ‘wish list’, and they expect it to be saved.

What can you do about it?
A. Some eCommerce sites keep the user’s unique cart, while some do not. If you don’t have such an option, you may want to consider implementing a cart ID, which shoppers can come back to easily. You may also want to use an expiration feature for carts to create a sense of urgency and drive shoppers to take action within a couple of days of abandonment.
B. Provide a ‘wish list’ feature that allows shoppers to save their preferred items for later. You can use this data in order to further personalize communication with shoppers in follow-up email. For instance, ModCloth uses a wish list functionality, and automatically send emails to shoppers when there is a price drop on products from their wish list.

ModCloth WishList

Wish lists eliminate the trouble of searching products again, and therefore make it more likely that the shopper will complete the purchase.

Wish lists are also valuable due to the increasing habit of researching on mobile, and completing the purchase via desktop.

C. Ask for an email early.
When shoppers save their cart for later, it implies that they are interested in visiting those items again. In order to be able to send gentle email reminders, you want to collect shoppers’ emails as early in the process as possible.
For instance, Bonobos collects the shopper’s email address as the first step of their checkout process.

Bonobos email capture pop-up

When trying to check out and buy an item, rather than asking for billing details, the first thing they ask for is an email address.

Theoretically, while this may lengthen the number of clicks until completion of the checkout, this allows for the start of a conversation, rather than optimizing the first purchase for a first-time visitor.

D. Send a series of cart abandonment emails to remind shoppers of their saved cart. In the email series you may choose to provide additional discount or free shipping, and add an element of scarcity (“only available in the next 24 hours”) to create a sense of urgency and drive action.

Here’s an example of a cart abandonment email:

FiftyThree cart abandonment email

E. Use Retargeting ad networks to approach shoppers with ads, reminding them of their abandoned cart. The cost of acquiring a new customer is 5 times higher than the cost for retaining an existing one. Retargeting ad networks such as AdRoll, allow you to place ads on sites that feature products the shopper has left in the cart.

4. Shipping date is too late:
Shoppers expect timely, and sometimes expedited delivery. A lengthy shipping time becomes an impediment for buying.

What you can do about it?
Come up with an attractive shipping offer, and be transparent about it.

ShopRunner 2-day shipping offer

You can also give the user different shipping options where the 2-day expedited shipping is ‘free’, subject to a commitment of an annual membership. Here is an example by Zazzle:

Zazzle membership options

5. They couldn’t find a payment option convenient for them:
According to Internet Retailer, different payment options are preferred by shoppers in different countries.
So depending on your available geographies, you should include enough payment options for your targeted shoppers.
Here is the diverse set of payment options offered by BookDepository, an Amazon company, focused on international, free shipping of books. You may also want to add Amazon checkout to this list.

Diverse payment options

6. The design was not convenient enough:
In an era when competing alternative products are offered in many other venues, you don’t want bad design to drive potential customers to your competitor’s site.

Bad design can include: not providing enough information, hiding contact information for customer service, a confusing checkout process, an inadequate site search option, poor customer service or conflicting colors, and more.

7. Didn’t want (or wasn’t ready) to create an account:
Many shopping platforms and cart management systems are offering the option to pay without creating an account. For many users, this option is attractive. Klarna, with their ‘pay later’ feature, even allows for completing the whole purchase without triggering any payment options.

In summary, shoppers abandon their cart for various reasons and there’s a lot you can do to alleviate shoppers’ concerns or mitigate their reasons for abandonment.

Hopefully you’ve found this article helpful. Have you ever experienced any of the issues above? Have any of these pieces of advice been helpful to your eCommerce store? Please comment below.

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