Proactively Increasing Your Online Sales TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary...1 The Problem with Online Sales...1 Best Practices to Increase Online Sales...3 Executive Summary Selling online is more than just setting up an e-commerce website and hoping that consumers will use it. Even the best-known brands need to work on ensuring that every opportunity is taken to create an effective and efficient retail experience by engaging the consumer proactively: Traditional methods for creating an attractive e-commerce website are not enough Success in sales conversion varies by channel; typical in-store conversions are nearly 30% 3 whilst website conversion rates are just 3% 4 Shopping cart abandonment is expected to cost $1.79 trillion per year. 5 A study of online shopping cart abandonment across 75 top UK retailers found that: Only 11 (15%) followed up with an email or phone call within 24 hours Of these only 4 (5%) followed up again within the next 24 hours Only 5 (7%) had chat available None of these retailers proactively engaged during the online shopping session Proactively engaging with customers using web chat or a callback can increase sales conversion rates 2x to 3x The Problem with Online Sales Sales conversion is the lifeblood of your company Retailers spend a great deal of money and resources on social media, advertising, lead generation tactics, customer loyalty programs, and other methods to drive traffic to their websites, stores and mobile shopping apps. This is in addition to the cost of sales personnel, product display and both online and off-line store design. In all cases, the ultimate goal is to entice consumers to visit your website or store and then to convert this traffic to sales. A successful online sales strategy has three key ingredients: increasing web traffic or footfall, increasing or at least maintaining ticket price, and improving the conversion rate as a percentage of your store s traffic.
Proactively Increasing Your Online Sales / page 2 Typical in-store sales conversions are nearly 30% 3 while website conversion is just 3% 4 Shopping cart abandonment is expected to cost $1.79 Trillion per year 5 Online shoppers have many options and spend little time on any of them Online shoppers use search engines or comparison sites to find retailers based on the type of product they are seeking. They will then visit yours and other sites to comparison shop and to determine details of the style and price, spending very little time on each site. In many cases, shoppers use Google and other popular search websites to aggregate the product, and even the Comparison Shopping Engines (CSEs) results, this significantly reduces the opportunity for you to differentiate your company and product offering, let alone engender any loyalty. Your internet shoppers tend to be very focused, providing you with much less opportunity to offer the additional cross-sell or up-sell options than would be the case in a more traditional brick-and-mortar store setting where the sales rep can offer, for example, accessories to clothes in a in fashion store or car security systems and stereos in an automotive outlet. Whilst some sites now offer you might be interested in features, these are essentially passive and easy for the shopper to ignore. Furthermore, online and mobile shopping relies entirely on the product to sell itself: in the store, sales reps offer feedback, validate the customer, and talk them through indecision. Some common methods to increase lead volume and conversion rates There are some standard techniques to attract more consumers to visit your website and increase the likelihood that these visitors are truly interested in a product. Such techniques include: Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) tools and techniques that put retail websites at the top of a search and will yield more leads, though they do not necessarily increase conversion rates Blogging by retailers to impact the quality of web leads and the likelihood that blog readers will buy. According to HubSpot, 92% of the companies that blogged multiple times per day acquired customers through their blogs 1 Social Media is a growing part of online and mobile marketing, with social media showing a 100% higher lead-to-close ratio than outbound marketing 2 However, these methods have little impact on the actual prospects sub-journeys toward a product that meets their specific needs when they are on the company s website. Here are some common web design methods that you may already be using: Call-to-action language on the website and mobile app Comparisons and reviews of competitors as well as reviews and testimonials by customers Request information forms Sophisticated online displays of the product from multiple angles and in varied colours Promotion of accessories or other products that might interest the shopper based on their current page visit e.g. you might be interested in
Proactively Increasing Your Online Sales / page 3 Only 15% of retailers followed up, with an email or phone call within 24 hours, and none in real time These, however, are typically one directional with limited capacity to convert your website visitors into paying customers. This approach to driving traffic and converting online leads has also become table stakes among your competitors offering no true opportunity to stand out among the competition. Online conversion rates fall below expectations Success in sales conversion varies by channel; typical in-store conversions are nearly 30% 3 while website conversions are just 3% 4. The web has dramatically shifted the commitment required to shop: an in-store shopper has travelled to the location, physically interacted with several products and had a face-to-face conversation with a sales representative. Your online shoppers often use their shopping carts as wish lists and abandon them as they move to another site. This is a significant problem: shopping cart abandonment is expected to cost $1.79 Trillion per year.5 Furthermore, most shoppers combine channels, researching online before visiting a store, or sometimes vice versa and expect a retailer to know their shopping history regardless of the channels they used. In August 2014 Genesys commissioned a study in the United Kingdom to understand how engaged online retailers are in assisting their potential customers to shop. Around 140 worth of goods was put into the online shopping carts of 75 of the top UK online retailers but before the checkout the shopping cart was abandoned. Despite the customer being online and providing their contact details: Only 11 (15%) followed up with an email or phone call within 24 hours Of these only 4 (5%) followed up again within the next 24 hours Only 5 (7%) had chat available None of these retailers proactively engaged via chat during the online shopping session Or to put it another way, of the potential 10,830 revenue actually offered to these retailers: 85% ( 9,180) was not pursued at all before or after the shopping cart abandonment Only 15% ( 1650) was pursued by email or a phone call after the abandonment Only 6% ( 600) was pursued twice, and only by email No one proactive engaged during the online shopping activity Imagine what it would be like if this were happening in bricks-and-mortar stores! For best results move from one-way to two-way consumer engagement Best Practices to Increase Online Sales Rapidly identify leads and offer proactive human assistance Sales studies consistently show that anywhere from 35% to 50% of all sales go to the agent who makes first contact 6. In other words, as shoppers move quickly from site to site in their search to purchase a product, the first company to engage with them will have the greatest opportunity to educate, inform and close the consumer. Proactive engagement, not waiting for the customer to request information or contact but empowering a sales agent to contact the lead via chat, voice call or video session as the shopper views the website is a way to quickly create a dialogue based on the need of the lead. This approach has been proven to pay off: if a company attempts phone contact within five minutes after a shopper submits an internet inquiry on their website, the odds that the lead is successfully contacted are 100 times greater than if the attempt is made 30 minutes after submission 7.
Proactively Increasing Your Online Sales / page 4 Once you are engaged with an interested lead, you can rapidly determine if they are salesready or if they will need further nurturing, and they should be handled in the following way: Hot leads should be routed to your highest performing sales agent available, who can then move to close the sale. Warm leads that cannot be closed by your sales agent but are still interested should be flagged for follow up contacts Cold leads are really warm leads that have stopped responding and their context, needs and interest should be recorded in your Customer Experience management systems, in case they return to your site or contact you through other channels. Use these best practices to proactively engage You can use well-designed and mobile-friendly websites but this needs to be coupled with the ability to present potential customers with online sales agents to create a dialogue and ultimately close the sale. Proactive engagement via chat or callback can increase sales conversion rates 2x to 3x Here are some methods to help improve conversion rates on your website: Drive traffic to your site using SEO, blogging, ads, and social media Rapidly identify leads that may be interested in a product by tracking where they are on your site and how they got there Proactively offer an opportunity for them to easily communicate with your sales agent, via pop-ups or buttons on the website this may be a web chat or a phone or video call Route them to your best available sales agent who is best equipped to make this sale (based on language, product or sales skills, product background knowledge, etc.) Quickly respond to their desire to talk to a customer service representative; rapid response is essential Equip your sales representatives with real-time inventory for not only central warehouses but also stores local to your customer along with store location information and in-depth product specs for the available products Ensure that the buying history of your repeat customers is provided to the agent regardless of the channel through which they are communicating (mobile, web or in-store) Determine if they are sales-ready and if so close the deal If they are not sales-ready, have a mechanism to follow up and nurture them until they are sales-ready, keeping a record of this available to all touchpoints and channels Switch from one-way to two-way communication Presenting your customers with a would you like to talk with us button that is highly visible will allow leads the ability to engage with a sales agent. This is more user-friendly than filling out a form for later contact, or worse, ignoring them as they rush off to another website. You may offer both, but sales conversions are often about opportunity in the moment. The quicker the response to your lead s request the higher the conversion rate. You can use website analytics to also engage interested shoppers in a more meaningful conversation, for example, present a chat box to customers if they are displaying confusion over sizing (as evidenced by multiple sizes of the same product in their shopping cart), to talk to them about sizing options.
Proactively Increasing Your Online Sales / page 5 Delivering a consistent omni-channel customer journey is critical Retail sales may not always lend itself to self-service due to the variations in sizing, availability, and compatibility with other products. Retailers with a well-trained sales agent can engage with customers to address their concerns, help them better understand their options and provide them with a product that meets their needs in a clear and direct manner. Building loyalty among online shoppers an increasingly difficult thing to do is enhanced by the human interaction with a call centre sales rep. It is important to arm agents who interact with qualified leads downstream of the initial contact with all the appropriate contextual information about the prospect and their interests in your company s products. Genesys can help you to improve your online sales Using the Genesys Customer Experience Platform you can improve web lead conversion rates and reduce customer effort by engineering the customer experience along the entire sales journey from first initial website visit to close of sale. With the Genesys Customer Experience platform retailers can engage prospects across all touchpoints and channels in a consistent and effective manner. These touchpoints include the website, the contact centre, mobile applications, and even face-to-face with in-store staff. About Genesys Genesys is the market leader in multi-channel customer experience (CX) and contact center solutions in the cloud and on-premises. We help brands of all sizes make great CX great business. The Genesys Customer Experience Platform powers optimal customer journeys consistently across all touchpoints, channels and interactions to turn customers into brand advocates. Genesys is trusted by over 4,500 customers in 80 countries to orchestrate more than 100 million digital and voice interactions each day. Visit us at www.genesys.com/uk or call us at +44 (0)2037 348 133 For cross-journey consistency, the Genesys solution retains the context of a potential customer across all interactions and touchpoints regardless of the channel (e.g. phone, SMS, email, website) and the number of times the customer switches between channels. The Genesys solution gives you the ability to use a wide range of information to enable your sales agents to best close sales with consumers who are sales-ready and on your websites. A wide range of contextual information can be applied to improve both sales conversion rates and also the customer experience including prospect profile information, website analytics information, and any other information captured during prior interactions as well as the current one. The Genesys Proactive Web Engagement solution combines sophisticated real-time behavioural analytics with customer insight from other information systems and previous interactions over any channel to ensure you reach out to customers at the precise time when assistance is needed. Use web pop-ups to link your online shoppers with your experienced sales agents that can educate, qualify and sell using online web chat, or a callback, either immediately or at an agreed later time via voice or video. This helps to keep customers on the website whilst they are browsing for products and can significantly increase sales conversion rates. The results can be extremely positive with online conversion rates increasing 2x to 3x. 1 www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics 2 State of Inbound Marketing, 2012 www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics 3 www.tycoretailsolutions.com/pages/challenges.aspx?itemid=8 4 www.searchmarketingstandard.com/what-is-the-average-conversion-rate 5 Inc. Magazine, 2014 6 InsideSales, Sales 2.0 Psychology, Self-Selection, and Getting There First 7 Forbes, Dreamforce 2013 Lead Management Research Calls Out Internet Marketers Who Still Miss The Boat Corporate Headquarters 2001 Junipero Serra Blvd., Daly City, CA 94014 USA Tel: +44 (0)2037 348 133 Fax: +44 (0)1276 457001 www.genesys.com/uk Genesys and the Genesys logo are registered trademarks of Genesys, Inc. All other company names and logos may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. 2014 Genesys, Inc. All rights reserved.