Oregon Sunset - The Digital Outdoorsman
1. Are You Ready for the Changes Consumers are Demanding in Customer Service?
Customers have high expectations of brands, including the customer service they provide. According to Forrester Research, 67% of adults feel the most important thing a company can do to provide good customer service is value their time. When it comes down to making a purchase, Gartner found that 64% think customer service is more important than price. Similarly, KPMG found that the number one attribute to a good customer loyalty program is providing "excellent customer support".
The takeaway is this: you need to invest in a customer service platform that delivers great customer experience.
What are your options? One is implementing a conversational customer service platform that integrates with your CRM and eCommerce platform. There are all-in-one tools and stand-alone specialized customer service tools that can be integrated.
These tools can bring order to chaos by helping you
- Create a frictionless customer experience
- Help customers help themselves
- Grow with happy, returning customers
Ecommerce platforms like BigCommerce and Shopify can easily integrate with other digital platforms (like HubSpot) that can help you create a seamless online customer experience.
Here are some of my favorite resources and technologies to help you implement that experience across your digital ecosystem.
- HubSpot Service Hub for all things digital customer service.
- Drift Conversational Marketing takes your chat and email strategy to the next level.
- ReviewTrackers helps you manage your brand reputation.
In other words, frictionless customer service is a must in order to engage in a transaction with a brand, let alone make a purchase.
Today's shoppers are empowered, impatient and savings-savvy. RetailMeNot collected insights from millions of consumers and thousands of retail marketers to put together the most comprehensive holiday insights guide to date.
Insights include:
- 61% of consumers will begin shopping before Thanksgiving Day.
- Seven in 10 shoppers say price is the biggest determining factor in what they buy this holiday season.
- 71% of shoppers will make a purchase at a big box store (e.g. Target), followed by 54% who plan to purchase from an e-commerce website like Amazon.
- 58% will not complete a holiday purchase without free shipping.
3. Mobile Holiday Purchasing is Up
Thanks to social media shoppability and retail apps, consumers did more Black Friday spending on their phones than ever before. Mobile orders increased 35% on Black Friday this year, with 65% of all e-commerce flowing through a mobile device, Salesforce also found. Of the more than $900 million total sales made by Shopify merchants, 69% of purchases were made on mobile, with the remaining 31% on desktop.
The trend continued through Saturday, when smartphones drove 41.2% of all e-commerce revenue, 22.2% more than last year. That's "slightly higher" than the 35.9% that has been more typical of this year, Adobe said.
"Black Friday broke mobile shopping records with $2.9 billion spent through smartphones alone," Taylor Schreiner, principal analyst and head of Adobe Digital Insights
One out of every five online purchases will be picked up in the store, according to The NPD Group's Holiday Purchase Intentions Survey.
Having an easy, frictionless checkout experience is a critical component to improving your mobile eCommerce numbers. Here are some tips to improve your mobile checkout.
4. Want to Improve Your Twitter Marketing?
Here is a free PDF from Twitter we found pretty useful. Although the content is presented in a manner for outside agencies to use, all of the tips and strategies in it can apply to almost any brand managing their own Twitter feed. The guide has some great examples of best practices for mixing organic and paid campaigns. It also provides examples of what content performs the best on Twitter ads and timelines.
Businesses are able to market on Twitter to engage users and followers, increase brand awareness, boost conversions, and more. Twitter makes it easy to distribute content. And, there are over 326 million average monthly Twitter users globally for you to share that content with. If you are looking for another resource on creating an overall Twitter marketing strategy, you can check out this resource from HubSpot.
