The hole in the Online Sales doughnut.
In brand circles the understanding of pre-sale brand experience goes back to the infancy of advertising where ‘trial and then adoption’ was first understood, but how does this understanding of sales experience translate into online sales thinking?
According to Turban et al. (Authors of Electronic Commerce 2008) “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation.”
I would get little argument if I said that the sales experience and in particular the (prospect) new customer experience, should be guided by the same definition. In that sales experiences should result in the confidence that a product or service expectation will be met!
Yet, few would be able to show how their online sales programs actually meet prospect expectations. …ohh they can show sales or conversion events alright…But how would you know if you should have received more sales if expectations were better met?
Most at this point would run to their stack of industry benchmarks, but!…What if nobody was measuring presales service expectations and opportunity loss?. I would suggest those who are, would be doing little to share their insight.
JBA’s experience tells me that approximately 50% of those who abandon check-out forms do so not because of form complexity etc, but because of product selection anxiety.
Service centric thinking, as such is not new to the online industry. So why then are we struggling to define and include satisfaction measurement metrics within our overall planning and optimisation processes?
So, how would one best define and measure the satisfaction level of a prospect?.
Peer referral scores, such as NetPromoter are good survey based data, but are like trying to describe an iced doughnut without mentioning the hole!
These scores should only be used as a comparative sanity check, to behavioural data, which is the true view of current satisfaction.
A service centric mindset would see you adding another timeframe and level to your reporting.
This enhanced would assess channels and campaigns based on their impact on the active percentage of the base, maintaining profile relevancy, accuracy of predictive behaviour and the tracking and understanding of all support and attrition related trends.
All these points help maintain the business investment and do well in illustrating opportunity loss, but also are the truest view of satisfaction.
This enhanced data is the hole in the doughnut, as these online sales trends measure the quality of service you have committed to providing a prospect and provide a real benchmark for growth.
