Conversations, Commerce and the New Rules of Engagement

white paper Conversations, Commerce and the New Rules of Engagement How Sitecore Helps Companies Drive Conversions and Build Lifetime Relationships in Today s Multichannel Environment

Table of Contents I. In Search of the Perfect (Customer) Relationship 1 Technology improves customer relationships right? 1 Sitecore keeps the conversation flowing 1 II. The New Rules of Customer Engagement 2 Rule #1: Know Your Customer 2 Rule #2: Content Is (Still) King 3 Rule #3: Customer Conversations (Can) Last Forever 3 III. How Engagement Ignites Commerce 4 1. Sitecore makes customer conversations more relevant 4 2. Continued engagement through marketing automation 4 3. Sitecore predicts current intent 5 4. Superior customer interactions through enterprise data integration 6 5. Maximize the revenue potential of return shoppers 7 IV. Strategic Highlights: Sitecore for Commerce 8 A note on architecture 8 V. Sitecore in Action: easyjet 9 Superior journeys require personalization 9 Promotions that fill two planes a minute 10 VI. Summary 10 About Sitecore 11

Copyright Copyright 2013 Sitecore. All Rights Reserved. Restricted Rights Legend This document may not, in whole or in part, be photocopied, reproduced, translated, or reduced to any electronic medium or machine readable form without prior consent, in writing, from Sitecore. Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Sitecore. Trademarks Sitecore is a registered trademark of Sitecore. All other company and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.

I. In Search of the Perfect (Customer) Relationship In recent business history, perhaps no holy grail has been sought longer, or at greater expense, than the perfect customer relationship. In the ideal dyad, a company has deeply prescient knowledge of individual customers needs and serves up the ideal products and services to fulfill them, at precisely the right moment. Starting in the 1990s, sparked by statistics such as companies can boost profits by almost 100 percent by retaining just 5 percent more of their customers, 1 customer-focused organizations focused on perfecting customer relationships through the communication channel that, next to face-to-face commerce, was then the most prevalent: the telephone. They invested billions in customer relationship management (CRM) and call center applications. Technology improves customer relationships right? Today, with the majority of consumers rating online purchasing as their overall favorite, easiest and most, convenient, 23 companies are still looking to build the perfect customer relationship. They depend on sophisticated commerce platforms to maintain fluid customer conversations that cross now-dominant channels including websites, mobile and social platforms, and technologies that bridge online and in-store, such as Quick Response (QR) codes. But that s not working very well. While commerce applications create profitable experiences when the customer is on the website, they typically require more to keep the conversation going beyond the point of conversion: more systems, more coordination with other departments, more hassle for commerce markters. That typically makes for brief, and far from perfect, customer relationships. Sitecore keeps the conversation flowing DID YOU KNOW? Women make 85% of all brand purchases, and 22% of women shop online at least once a day. 3 Sitecore, the leader in customer engagement solutions, plays an integral role in a large and growing number of commerce environments, globally. The Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform (CEP) is used by companies for which online and mobile commerce is an essential, and often sole, revenue stream. Sitecore allows these forward-thinking companies to easily marry the most sophisticated capabilities of popular commerce platforms with a world-class content management engine that intuitively determines what information a customer needs, when, and delivers it through the appropriate channel. Unlike any other solution before it, Sitecore CEP enables companies to drive the fluid conversations that drive conversions into first and repeat purchases, fostering the life-long loyalty that is the true hallmark of the perfect customer relationship. 1. Zero Defections: Quality Comes to Services by Frederick F. Reichheld and W. Earl Sasser, Jr., Harvard Business Review, September-October 1990. 2. Shopper Sentiment: How Customers Feel About Shopping In-Store, Online and via Mobile, Neilsen, June 6, 2012. Online purchasing was rated the Overall favorite by 59 percent of those surveyed, as well as the Easiest (68%) and Most convenient (68%). 3. Source: http://www.she-conomy.com/facts-on-women. 1

This white paper explains how Sitecore adds an essential element of customer engagement to commerce environments, whether they are built on leading commerce platforms such as Magento, Hybris, InsiteCommerce and ucommerce, or created completely with the Sitecore solution set. It concludes with a customer snapshot (easyjet) that illustrates the persuasive effect Sitecore can have in real-world environments with commensurate revenue impact. II. The New Rules of Customer Engagement In any relationship, engagement which can be defined as involvement with, commitment to, and satisfaction with another person or entity drives interaction and longevity. In relationships between online commerce firms and their customers, engagement levels intuitively correlate with initial conversions and repeat purchases. Fostering high levels of engagement therefore entails adhering to today s three new rules of customer engagement which are, in fact, modern twists on proven strategies that marketers have used for decades. Rule #1: Know Your Customer More than any other factor, engagement is the most accurate predictor of what a customer will do in the future. A 360-degree view of the customer has been a popular sales concept since the 1990s. It pertains to having access to information about customers past, present and future behaviors. Today, because many customer interactions are digital, occurring across multiple channels (including offline and in-store), online commerce marketers benefit from having knowledge of: The past is a meaningful and easily digested view of the individual customer s history, including purchases, returns, activity on the commerce site and across all channels of interaction: email, mobile and social, as well as QR codes and in-store point of purchase. The present requires intuitively presenting the right information to each customer, in the moment, based on a unique visitor s digital body language, if available, or a new visitor s digital fingerprint. The future: What will the customer need in the future? What are the cross-sell/up-sell opportunities? More than any other factor, engagement is the most accurate predictor of what a customer will do in the future. Personalization: It Starts with a Digital Fingerprint Personalization is one of the key catalysts in maximizing engagement. It allows individual users to be targeted with highly relevant content. The Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform makes personalization a natural and intuitive part of the content production process; with Sitecore CEP marketers can easily configure a wide range of campaign landing pages, emails or other site elements on the commerce site (such as site-wide calls to action, videos, sidebars, etc.) to deliver personalized content. These personalization capabilities start with the moment a visitor arrives on the commerce site; the Sitecore solution immediately catalogs key digital fingerprint information, as illustrated, to present relevant information in real-time. 2

Figure 1: Sitecore immediately recognizes key digital fingerprint data, which can be used with rulesbased personalization on keywords, location, visitor identification, referrals, campaigns and goals. Rule #2: Content Is (Still) King Content is king was the rallying cry from the land-grab days of the early web. In the 15-plus years since then, commerce companies core channels of interaction have expanded from just the web to include email, mobile/ tablet and social not to mention future, yet-to-be-identified devices. As a result, the notion of high-value content is changing; the content must not only be on-target for the customer, but channel-appropriate. It must incorporate information that bridges departments (and enterprise systems) that have been traditionally siloed, such as sales organizations customer relationship management (CRM) and sales force automation (SFA) applications, as appropriate. To achieve and maintain maximum engagement, presenting the right content, at the right time, to the right customer, is now a business imperative. Rule #3: Customer Conversations (Can) Last Forever With the shift in purchasing to predominantly digital channels, relationships have followed, making it easier than ever for customers to stay engaged with the companies and brands they love. Consumers want to stay connected, informed, entertained and inspired. But as the conversation skips between the website, mobile devices and tablets, email and social mediums like Facebook and Twitter, and in-store interactions, how can commerce marketers keep up? 3

III. How Engagement Ignites Commerce The Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform uniquely allows commerce marketers to weave individual conversation threads across multiple channels, to the point of purchase decision and beyond. In doing so, Sitecore helps to sustain high levels of engagement, the key to driving conversions for initial and repeat purchases. Figure 2: The multichannel customer journey. Sitecore CEP helps commerce marketers sustain engagement, and sales, in five ways. 1. Sitecore makes customer conversations more relevant To carry on any conversation, the content must be relevant. On a commerce site, to definitively know what engages visitors and what doesn t, content, design and interaction flows must be tested. Sitecore helps ensure that content engages vistors into conversations with easy testing and refinement. Sitecore CEP allows hypotheses to be readily tested with integrated A/B split and multivariate testing tools. An A/B split test is a simple test of one element with several variations. Variations are defined as the original element tested against n number of variations. Elements can be anything, from a colored spot to a call to action on a button. A multivariate (MV) test entails testing several elements with several variations. For example, on a website with landing pages that result in low engagement, multivariate testing allows elements including headline, picture and call-to-action message to be tests against each other, to see which combination results in the highest engagement. 2. Continued engagement through marketing automation Successful conversations depend on delivering the right message to the customer at the right time, through the appropriate channel. Sitecore CEP provides Engagement Automation functionality that allows commerce marketers to create engagement plans, or process flows, that can be used to nurture interest and get potential buyers purchase-ready. Using Engagement Automation is a straightforward process involving Relevancy Maps and User Journeys. These models interpret visitor intent and behavior into buying cycles. Relevancy Maps and User Journeys then can be synthesized into an Engagement Plan, which can be used by commerce providers in many ways, including lead nurturing, in-store follow-up, QR code activation and other 4

initiatives. The example Engagement Plan below pertains to follow-up after a fictitious camera company s event to attract new local dealers; it contains scheduled reminders and follow-ups, with an aim of further engaging the event s attendees. Figure 3: This sample Engagement Plan was used in conjunction with a retail dealer event. In executing Engagement Plans, Sitecore CEP features an integrated Email Campaign Manager that can be used to send out trigger-based emails. These can be initiated by interactions such as specific activity on the commerce site, Facebook likes, Twitter hashtags and QR code activations. The statistics generated by these email campaigns, such as open and click-through rates, are automatically captured in the Sitecore Engagement Analytics database. The Email Campaign Manager can also be used to proactively send emails to segmented recipients for more traditional email marketing campaigns. This segmentation can be done within Sitecore or can be based on a customer database that is integrated with Sitecore. 3. Sitecore predicts current intent Beyond digital fingerprints, the Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform helps commerce marketers to read and more fully understand visitor behavior digital body language and dynamically adapt the site to customers needs. Recognizing that commerce site visitors take different paths and have different intents, Sitecore starts with a digital fingerprint and then goes much deeper, analyzing visitors digital body language to intensify customer engagement. The Sitecore solution senses visitor needs based on digital body language and adapts the presented information accordingly, a capability Sitecore calls Predictive Personalization. Predictive Personalization effectively addresses the largest challenge in personalization: the enormous complexity of rules that must be generated for all different types of customer behavior. 5

Sitecore Predictive Personalization: Background Reading Sitecore Predictive Personalization targets visitors with relevant content in real-time, according to their behavior, as mapped via content profiling. This implicit personalization capability effectively eliminates the previous enormous complexity of generating rules for all different types of customer behavior. For more details, please see the document Profiling and Predictive Personalization with the Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform, available online at www.sitecore.net/predictivepersonalization or by scanning the QR code below: This guide describes an easy seven-step process that commerce providers can use to get started with Predictive Personalization: Step 1. Identify the Who and the Why Step 2. Configure Profiles Step 3. Configure Profile Cards and Personas Step 4. Profile content Step 5. Configure predefined visitor patterns Step 6. Create personalization based on patterns Step 7. Adjust and optimize With the Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform, companies can build an engaging digital presence without programming. This is largely a process in which customer needs are analyzed and personalization scenarios established. 4 4. Superior customer interactions through enterprise data integration Many commerce systems deliver rich functionality, but do not readily integrate with enterprise systems. Sitecore CEP, which includes Sitecore Content Management System (CMS), easily connects with any third party enterprise system, such as CRM and SFA, as well as product information management (PIM) and inventory. Sitecore CMS integrates with any database, web service, or other external service with prebuilt connectors, data abstraction layers and out-of-the-box integration capabilities. As a result, commerce providers can easily leverage enterprise data integration to: Share and reuse content: Easily connect to any source and access content as if it were native to Sitecore, eliminating duplication of content and additional manual effort. THE POWER OF XML Sitecore speeds integration with XML, the format in which it stores and utilizes all of its content. To facilitate integration with external database systems, Sitecore offers the Data Provider Abstraction Layer. This gives developers a standardized way to expose database connections to Sitecore so they can access those databases and records as if they were simple XML documents, dramatically reducing development time. 4. Predictive Personalization can be configured by internal resources a Sitecore partner and/or Sitecore Business Optimization Services. 6

Enable sales organizations with real-time insight: Sitecore integrates with CRM systems to automatically deliver actionable opportunity data to sales teams a critical capability in environments where offline pre-sales activity culminates in online transactions. Reduce developer effort and project risk: Sitecore s out-of-the-box integration capabilities reduce custom programming, project costs and risk. 5. Maximize the revenue potential of return shoppers Recognizing that content is at the center of both engagement and commerce, Sitecore works seamlessly with top commerce platforms such as Hybris, Magento, InsiteCommerce, ucommerce and others, as well as PIM systems including inriver and Perfion. Sitecore CEP helps commerce providers using these systems to maximize conversions, marrying Sitecore s world-class engagement capabilities with the commerce platforms functions like discounts, vouchers, wish lists, multiple ship-to addresses and more. Companies that enhance their commerce platform investments with Sitecore can expect to: Deliver value to customers at every step in their journey, whether it takes place on the main commerce website, the mobile site, or any combination of other on- and offline channels. Facilitate discovery and engagement by providing a rich, highly personalized experience during every interaction of the customer conversation. Enhance their brand through the exemplary stewardship evidenced by exceptional customer experiences. Figure 4: The Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform helps commerce marketers to maximize the most important elements of customer interaction, to drive revenue growth. 7

IV. Strategic Highlights: Sitecore for Commerce Sitecore has two tiers of commerce offerings. First, for companies that already have made large investments in sophisticated commerce platforms, or are considering them, Sitecore E-Commerce Services (SES) puts a new twist on a classic enterprise strategy: SES complements and extends those commerce platforms, extracting significant incremental value at a relatively low cost. Sitecore E-Commerce Services are delivered through an integration layer that is designed to support popular high-end commerce systems. Thus, companies can still use their commerce platforms sophisticated features while enhancing their efficacy with the unique capabilities of the Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform, illustrated in Figure 5 below. Alternatively, for companies that have smaller-scale commerce operations, Sitecore E-Commerce Foundation (SEF) is an ideal an all-in-one solution. Sitecore E-Commerce Foundation includes a shopping cart, ordering system, customer management system, product information manager and a promotion system. Both Sitecore E-Commerce Services and Sitecore E-Commerce Foundation include the functionality of the Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform, which comprises four broad functions: Content Management, User Experience, Measurement & Learning, and Engagement. A note on architecture Figure 5: The Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform helps commerce marketers foster maximum engagement and drive revenues. Sitecore is architected to meet the needs of marketers, with a structured content approach that separates content from presentation. Specifically, the Sitecore system dynamically creates each page by assembling each piece of data, or content, for that page. Content can be text, images, video, tables or other content format. Sitecore s approach makes it particularly easy for commerce providers to optimize their sites for display on computers, mobile devices and tablets, since content presented on one page can easily be reused and redisplayed across a multitude of devices, as appropriate. Content may also be displayed differently across pages or devices, in any way or combination of ways. 8

Separating content from presentation affords maximum flexibility and scalability, and is essential to quickly capitalize on consumers growing appetite for mobile shopping. Sitecore allows commerce providers to achieve a consistent online presence across today s popular devices, as well as future Internet-enabled devices such as glasses and TVs. SITECORE: 100% PURE.NET All Sitecore solutions are built using the Microsoft.NET solution platform, a dominant choice in enterprise environments, making it an ideal choice for organizations that have standardized on Microsoft technology. V. Sitecore in Action: easyjet Distinctively branded with an energetic shade of orange, easyjet is Europe s leading airline. It has over 600 routes in 30 countries, more than 200 aircraft, and in 2011 served over 58 million passengers, reaching revenues of 3.8 billion. On the web, easyjet is the number one travel search term in the UK; the website supports 14 languages and attracts visitors from 221 countries. easyjet is passionate about helping its customers by making travel easy and affordable. The company has been relentless in its drive to make easyjet.com simple and straightforward, refining its booking journey to help customers make a flight booking within 30 seconds, or even less on a mobile device. With personalization powered by Superior journeys require personalization Sitecore, easyjet s promotions can easyjet began to realize that although the company had made now fill two planes per minute. booking quick and simple, it was not able to personalize the booking journey and help customers with relevant content. Prior to implementing Sitecore, the content displayed to any given visitor was either too generic or simply irrelevant for example, web visitors residing in Liverpool were presented with promotions for flights from Edinburgh. The visitor was left to do all the searching to find the appropriate flight. easyjet, together with partner True Clarity, implemented a Sitecore solution to deliver a personalized home page for every easyjet website visitor. Using search or GeoIP data, Sitecore now dynamically personalizes the easyjet home page for the unique visitor showing flights from their nearest airport, plus imagery and con- For a start, the sheer power of the tool out of the box has transformed the way we can change the site to react quickly to external factors. For example, during a recent wet spell we had a series of ad banners encouraging users to escape the rain such a simple premise but very difficult to achieve quickly before we implemented Sitecore. This power, coupled to the dynamic pricing and the increasing levels of personalization the site is beginning to offer, means we are able to offer ever-more relevant content to our visitors which help us drive our brand values easyjet is passionate about making travel easy and affordable! James Millett, Head of Digital, easyjet 9

tent that appeal to their previous behaviors. The home page shows live pricing for relevant flights from a local airport; with a click, the visitor can add those flights to their shopping basket. Promotions that fill two planes a minute The Sitecore solution is robust, delivering personalized home pages to 2.5 million users at peak during easy- Jet s January Sale in 2012. easyjet claims the sale was their best ever, with five sales per second, or the equivalent of filling two planes per minute. Overall, easyjet has enjoyed a significant increase in conversions as a result of website changes and its successful Europe by easyjet marketing campaign. Home page personalization has been rolled out to all 19 regional easyjet websites and easyjet recognizes that personalizing its home page is just the start of exploiting the potential of Sitecore. QR Codes and the In-Store Connection Companies that sell goods at their own commerce sites and in stores can use Sitecore to engage customers in conversations that flow across on- and offline channels. For example, a footwear company can use Sitecore to create a personalized, multichannel interaction that looks like this: A prospect sees a bus shelter poster promoting a new running shoe and wants to find out more. She uses her smartphone to scan the QR code on the poster. Later that day, the Sitecore system generates a follow-up email containing a link to the shoe s microsite. On her smartphone, the prospect opens the email, goes to the mobile version of the microsite and activates a 10%-off coupon. The microsite generates the discount coupon, using her phone s geolocation information to direct her to the nearest retailer carrying the shoe. She can have the coupon scanned at the point of sale, or enter the discount code if she decides buy the shoes later, on the manufacturer s main or mobile commerce site. The promotion also gives the prospect the option to post her interest in the running shoes as a status update on Facebook, so she can tell her friends. VI. Summary As the volume of commerce continues to shift to online channels, the Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform gives commerce providers an advantage in following today s New Rules of Engagement: Rule #1: Know Your Customer: Within Sitecore, gaining a 360-degree view of customer behavior past, present and future, on- and offline is now possible, and more important than ever. Rule #2: Content Is (Still) King: In today s environment, Sitecore allows content to be personalized, informationrich and on-target for each customer, on any communication channel they may chose. Rule #3: Customer Conversations (Can) Last Forever: With consumers now buying more online, relationships have followed. Sitecore makes it easy for customers to stay engaged with the companies and brands they love. 10

The Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform uniquely allows commerce marketers to engage with individual customers, weaving the conversation thread across multiple channels. In doing so, Sitecore helps to sustain high levels of engagement, the key to driving conversions for initial and repeat purchases. Whether you choose Sitecore E-Commerce Services to enhance your company s investment in a leading commerce platform like Hybris, Magento, InsiteCommerce or ucommerce, or use Sitecore E-Commerce Foundation to build a complete commerce site, you can expect to receive essential benefits. These include the abilities to: Speak with one voice across all of the channels on an individual basis Coordinate the customer journey in an organized fashion Understand the individual visitor and important segments Build lifetime customer engagement, loyalty and value. For more information about Sitecore commerce solutions, please visit www.sitecore.net About Sitecore Sitecore is a global software company that creates products to deliver the most relevant experience and content to customers at any moment of interaction and via any communications channel the web, email, mobile, social and offline. Our customer experience management platform combines proven web content management with customer intelligence to create a single view of a customer that drives meaningful interactions, increases conversions and builds lifetime customers. Global brands, including American Express, Carnival Cruise Lines, easyjet, Heineken, LEGO, Microsoft, and Nestle rely on Sitecore to get and keep loyal customers who engage more and drive revenue growth. 11