OMNI-CHANNEL PART 2: A Frictionless Customer Experience

By Kaylyn Bredon, Sr Mgr, Interactive Creative/UX

In Part 1 of this series, we focused on how the marketing realm has evolved and the importance of creating a seamless customer experience. Continuing this discussion, we’ll now focus on how consumers expect retailers to provide more contextually relevant, personalized information that is carefully tuned to a frequency that suits each individual's liking.

Amazing opportunities present themselves when retailers thoroughly align consumer data with an approach that has context, personalization and a manageable frequency. In doing so, they can provide customers with solutions that make everyday tasks easier while making the shopping experience more enjoyable.

Multiple tactics and some example technologies are listed below serving as areas of opportunity. In no way is it a one-size-fits-all prescription — retailers should identify consumer needs and implement accordingly.

OMNI-CHANNEL PART 1: Considering the Customer Experience

  

By Kaylyn Bredon, Sr Mgr, Interactive Creative/UX

One consistent theme throughout every session I attended at SXSW 2013 was the need to create and maintain an “omni-channel” experience. This is a new challenge being introduced to many retailers- often times leaving them with unclear direction on just where to start due to the siloed structure that many businesses and marketing teams have grown to be.

As an interactive designer/ux specialist at a full-service advertising agency, the idea of overcoming the obstacles of working with siloed teams is not foreign to me. After all, that’s why many companies hire agencies like SBC Advertising to help them. We have the advantage of being separated from their business, often avoiding the internal and political bureaucracies, while at the same time having direct access to the decision makers that have the ability to make decisions and get the job done.

In the past, working in silos has allowed us to react quickly and create standalone efforts that were supported by isolated databases and provided separate analytics (i.e. microsites). However, these standalone workarounds no longer serve as viable options.

Today, it is imperative that all channels work together, and in return they provide valuable insight into the numbers, showing what’s working and what’s not. With that being said, data is, and will continue to be, at the very base of creating a successful omni-channel experience, making the relationship between Marketing and IT more important than ever.

Holiday Retail Darling 2.0 - Mobile Commerce

"In 2008 and 2009 , mobile started out as a science project. It's accelerated so fast that it's becoming more mission-critical for retailers to deliver a mobile experience in a professional way."  

- Dave Sikora, Digby

In our 2009 post-holiday blog we declared online shopping as the holiday retail darling of the holiday season. But this year there' s a new darling in town - it's that handy portable device we call a mobile phone. Mobile commerce, or m-commerce, made a significant contribution as the new tech trend for the holiday season as more shoppers were going online than ever before.

People used their phone just like their computers at home for online shopping: comparing prices, purchasing items and finding the nearest store location as well as inventory in stock locally.


Retailers hopped on board as they invested in m-commerce to prepare for the holidays. That's a smart move considering how m-commerce promotions encourage impulse buys, and knowing the exact location of shoppers lets merchants deliver coupons and offers to users when they're most likely to spend. Mobile apps like Foursquare  encourages consumers to "check in" and retailers took advantage of the information. They offered the ability to scan barcodes or get discounts on their mobile device while out shopping. With moves like that, retailers presented a seamless shopping experience online and offline.


M-commerce expected to triple this year, and double again next year; but US lags behind others

• m-commerce is expected to triple to $3 billion in the U.S. this year and reach $6 billion next year
• However, U.S. consumers are still behind foreign consumers in terms of purchasing with a mobile phone
• 7.9% of U.S. consumers have bought something with a phone vs.
• 32% of consumers in Taiwan have bought something with a phone (This tops the list of major industrialized countries (per IE Market Research Corp)
• About 13% of consumers in Finland have bought something with a phone (#1 European country)

M-commerce played a significant role so far in the 2010 holiday online shopping experience

• Almost 60% of mobile consumers expect to use their phones to help with shopping plans and holiday celebrations this season
• Nearly 4% of all Cyber Monday shoppers used smartphones and other devices to make their purchases
• According to research data from Google/OTX:
• 52% of U.S. smartphone users plan to use their phone to compare prices during the holiday shopping season
• 40% plan to use their phones to read product reviews
• According to the 2010 eholiday pre-holiday survey from National Retail Federation
• Shoppers using smartphones will account for at least $127 billion, or 28%, of the $447 billion the NRF predicts consumers will spend this holiday season 
• Over one quarter of consumers said they definitely planned to use their smartphone to research or make holiday purchases

Are you planning to ride the m-commerce wave this holiday season? You won't be alone!

Image: Carlos Porto/freedigitalphotos.net 

Sources:

7.9% of U.S. consumers bought item on smart phone, SFgate.com, 12/3/10

It's a holly, jolly (mobile) Christmas, shop.org, 12/2/10
Best Buy, Amazon.com Try to Reach Shoppers Through Their Phones, businessweek.com, 12/2/10
U.S. Online Sales on Cyber Monday Climbed 16%, ComScore Says, bloomberg.com, 12/1/10
Cyber Monday sales hit record $1B, bizjournals.com 12/1/10

New in Ad Tech: Eye Tracking Ad

This ad for Amnesty International is the first-ever poster to employ eye-tracking technology. The poster is an anti-abuse ad that depicts a smiling couple - at least when you're looking at it. When you look away, it shows a man hitting a woman.

According to blog Gizmodo, this is how the technology works -

“The billboard works by scanning its proximity with an eye-tracking camera, which triggers an image switch on the display panel when it senses someone looking at it. The change only occurs after a brief delay, so that observers understand what's going on, and get the message.”
Pretty innovative stuff -- and the medium is a perfect fit.

Now I just want smellavision to become reality.
[via Gizmodo]