Customer focus matters.

Repeatedly putting yourself in the shoes of your customer and viewing things from their perspective is about focusing on their needs, wants and aspirations. This builds customer loyalty and loyal customers are far more financially rewarding than new customers.

Neil Roberts, Product Director at Moo, shares four ways to better understand how we can deliver great customer focus to reap more profitable and sustainable eCommerce businesses.

Neil spent most of the last decade at Eurostar creating digital strategy that builds great customer experience. He's now at MOO helping them scale their ambition to bring 'Great design to everyone'.

Product vs Website

If you have a product you want to sell online, you need customers to generate business on your eCommerce website.

Before you jump the gun and start thinking of all the ways you can create a cool and slick website for your product, you need to first know your customers wants and expectations. eCommerce websites are less about the website and more about the product.

People don't come to [our website] because of the eCommerce experience, they come for our physical product. But they can't get the product without having the eCommerce experience.

— Neil Roberts

It’s a balancing act.

The website should be viewed as a mechanism to demonstrate the product in a way that makes it easy for the customer to understand and ensure easy access to the product. Website designs that mirror product design result in a more coherent user experience.

You may have a great and highly sought after product but the website needs to look good and function well. If the software and site speed isn’t on point it’s very easy to run the risk of devaluing the whole brand experience. The website has to perform and deliver a seamless experience so that the customer is able to quickly access the products they want, pay and leave. A visual interface that's intuitive and fits with the way the customers interpret the world will work really well.

For a company like MOO that positions itself in the quality and design aspects of their product, it has to live up to the brand in their eCommerce experience.

We couldn't do a really ugly site, for example, because it wouldn't fit with the brand. Our customers expect a standard that is equivalent to the quality that they get in the business cards or the notebooks.

— Neil Roberts

Surprise and Delight

Right at the top of the customer experience pyramid is surprise and delight. The idea is that we should be surprising our customer and giving them a delightful experience.

This is another balancing act.

You can run the risk of becoming too focused on the surprise and delight element and overlook the rest of the customer experience. For example, a free cup of coffee and cake will bring initial delight but isn’t going to pave the way to brand loyalty because it won’t necessarily lead customers to make a repeat purchase.

In Eurostar, if the train is late or cancelled, it doesn’t matter how many pairs of free sunglasses they hand out, it’s not going to make the slightest difference to the customer … It’s not as sexy to sort these things out but it’s absolutely critical that you get it right.

— Neil Roberts

The fundamentals have got to be right first.

At MOO we spend a lot of time getting our customers to make that sucking feel when they open the box [to find a product that exudes] quality. We also make them a promise that if you are not satisfied in any way, even if it’s a mistake that they’ve made, we’ll reprint free of charge. We want to deliver on our promise and experience as best we can.

— Neil Roberts

Design Thinking

Digital strategy is more than how to expand reach, sell more products and create the ideal online purchasing experience.

Digital strategy needs to be blended into what I would call ‘the real world’. So when you're in the station and you arrive and the battery on your mobile is flat, or you’ve forgotten your ticket, or your train has been cancelled … how can technology help with that?

— Neil Roberts

Design thinking is looking at how your customers use a product or service by putting yourself in their shoes and understanding what is important to them. This will help you see their problems firsthand and make you more empathetic towards them.

Understanding the context and the purpose your customer's going to use your product can help you make an exceptional product that is packaged right.

Neil Roberts gives a fantastic example of square footage of toilets.

Toilet facilities for men and women are usually made with equal square footage. This seems fair except for the ergonomics of the male and female body are different and the unseen bias around the data that often women are the primary carers. If they have an elderly person or a child with them, it makes the dwell time in the toilet longer.

The same square footage isn't sufficient and you end up with long lines of people waiting.

You only get this insight by actually walking the walk and experiencing it in the same way [as your customers].

— Neil Roberts

The processes around design thinking are observing and interacting with the customers through interviews and surveys. You can add value to the customer when you understand their needs and offer a product that's intuitive and fits with the way they interpret the world.

Customer Engagement

There are many different online tools that you can use to capture customer engagement on your website so that you can better understand your customer.

Start with free tools like HotJar and Google Analytics and invest in people who are good at getting you insight to where the friction points are.

Use analytics to look at the funnel and decide where you want to improve. Study the progression of customers through the funnel and understand where the drop offs are and why. Carry out exit surveys on the part of the website where you have drop offs so that you can improve those areas and make it easier for customers to move through the funnel.

Takeaway #1 Know your customers to understand and meet their expectations.

Takeaway #2 The website is secondary to the product.

Takeaway #3 Stand in the customers shoes to understand their needs and see their problems first hand.

Connect with Neil Roberts

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neil-roberts/

Website: www.moo.com

Customer Engagement Measurement Tools

User Testing: www.usertesting.com

HotJar: https://www.hotjar.com/

Google Analytics: www.analytics.google.com