Category Archives: ecommerce

PIM is for storage

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– Add search for distribution, customization and seamless multichannel experiences.

Retailers, e-commerce and product data
Having met a number of retailers to discuss information management, we’ve noticed they all experience the same problem. Products are (obviously) central and information is typically stored in a PIM or DAM system. So far so good, these systems do the trick when it comes to storing and managing fundamental product data. However, when trying to embrace current trends1 of e-commerce, such as mobile friendliness, multi-channel selling and connecting products to other content, PIM systems are not really helping. As it turns out, PIM is great for storage but not for distribution.

Retailers need to distribute product information across various channels – online stores, mobile and desktop, spreadsheet exports, subsets of data with adjustments for different markets and industries. They also need connecting products to availability, campaigns, user generated content and fast changing business rules. Add to this the need for closing the analytics feedback loop, and the IT department realises that PIM (or DAM) is not the answer.

Product attributes

Adding search technology for distribution
Whereas PIM is great for storage, search technology is the champ not only for searching but also for distribution. You may have heard the popular Create Once Publish Everywhere? Well, search technology actually gives meaning to the saying. Gather any data (PIM, DAM, ERP, CMS), connect it to other data and display it across multiple channels and contexts.

Also, with the i32 package of components you can add information (metadata) or logic that is not available in the PIM system. This whilst source data stay intact – there is no altering, copying or moving.

Combined with a taxonomy for categorising information you’re good to go. You can now enrich products and connect them to other products and information (processing service). Categorise content according to product taxonomy and be done. Performance will be super high, as content is denormalised and stored in the search engine, ready for multi channel distribution. Also, with this setup you can easily also add new sources to enrich products or modify relevance. Who knows what information will be relevant for products in the future?

To summarise

  • PIM for input, search for output. Design for distribution!
  • Use PIM for managing products, not for managing business rules.
  • Add metadata and taxonomies to tailor product information for different channels.
  • Connect products to related content.
  • Use stand-alone components based on open source for strong TCO and flexibility.

References
1 Gartner for marketers
2The Findwise i3 package of components (for indexing, processing, searching and analysing data) is compatible with the open source search engines Apache Solr and Elasticsearch. 

Why search and Findability is critical for the customer experience and NPS on websites

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To achieve a high NPS, Net Promoter Score, the customer experience (cx) is crucial and a critical factor behind a positive customer experience is the ease of doing business. For companies who interact with their customers through the web (which ought to be almost every company these days) this of course implies a need to have good Findability and search on the website in order for visitors to be able to find what they are looking for without effort.

The concept of NPS was created by Fred Reichheld and his colleagues of Bain and Co who had an increasing recognition that measuring customer satisfaction on its own wasn’t enough to make conclusions of customer loyalty. After some research together with Satmetrix they came up with a single question that they deemed to be the only relevant one for predicting business success “How likely are you to recommend company X to a friend or colleague.” Depending upon the answer to that single question, using a scale of 0 to 10, the respondent would be considered one of the following:

net-promoter

The Net Promoter Score model

The idea is that Promoters—the loyal, enthusiastic customers who love doing business with you—are worth far more to your company than passive customers or detractors. To obtain the actual NPS score the percentage of Detractors is deducted from the percentage of Promoters.

How the customer experience drives NPS

Several studies indicate four main drivers behind NPS:

  • Brand relationship
  • Experience of / satisfaction with product offerings (features; relevance; pricing)
  • Ease of doing business (simplicity; efficiency; reliability)
  • Touch point experience (the degree of warmth and understanding conveyed by front-line employees)

According to ‘voice of the customer’ research conducted by British customer experience consultancy Cape Consulting the ease of doing business and the touch point experience accounts for 60 % of the Net Promoter Score, with some variations between different industry sectors. Both factors are directly correlated to how easy it is for customers to find what they are looking for on the web and how easily front-line employees can find the right information to help and guide the customer.

Successful companies devote much attention to user experience on their website but when trying to figure out how most visitors will behave website owners tend to overlook the search function. Hence visitors who are unfamiliar with the design struggle to find the product or information they are looking for causing unnecessary frustration and quite possibly the customer/potential customer runs out of patience with the company.

Ideally, Findability on a company website or ecommerce site is a state where desired content is displayed immediately without any effort at all. Product recommendations based on the behavior of previous visitors is an example but it has limitations and requires a large set of data to be accurate. When a visitor has a very specific query, a long tail search, the accuracy becomes even more important because there will be no such thing as a close enough answer. Imagine a visitor to a logistics company website looking for information about delivery times from one city to another, an ecommerce site where the visitor has found the right product but wants to know the company’s return policy before making a purchase or a visitor to a hospital’s website looking for contact details to a specific department. Examples like these are situations where there is only one correct answer and failure to deliver that answer in a simple and reliable manner will negatively impact the customer experience and probably create a frustrated visitor who might leave the site and look at the competition instead.

Investing in search have positive impacts on NPS and the bottom line 

Google has taught people how to search and what to expect from a search function. Step one is to create a user friendly search function on your website but then you must actively maintain the master data, business rules, relevance models and the zero-results hits to make sure the customer experience is aligned. Also, take a look at the keywords and phrases your visitors use when searching. This is useful business intelligence about your customers and it can also indicate what type of information you should highlight on your website. Achieving good Findability on your website requires more than just the right technology and modern website design. It is an ongoing process that successfully managed can have a huge impact on the customer experience and your NPS which means your investment in search will generate positive results on your bottom line.

More posts on this topic will follow.

/Olof Belfrage