The business case for Web sales is made on influence, not direct sales

[Posted by Brad Strothkamp}

One area where metrics in financial services are still hard to come by is the level of influence that the Web has on sales made in a branch, by phone or via mail. This is one area where Forrester's data can help clients. Every year, we survey US and Canadian consumers on their acquisition activities in the previous year.  

I just published a brief around the topic of online-influence sales. The big find?  The influence of the Web in sales is far more extensive than most expect. Just 37% of US online adults who researched online go to apply online - that means 63% research online and apply offline. Product is the key determinant of the percentage of online influenced sales. This graphic shows the breakdown by product for some of the products I looked at.

 
So what does this mean? If you are selling brokerage accounts, focus on the online application, if you are selling mortgages, focus on the cross-channel experience, if you are selling auto insurance, focus on both.

Brad
 

 

This Year, US Online Holiday Retail Sales Will Be Up 8%

 

By Sucharita Mulpuru

 

Today, Forrester releases its 2009 US Online Holiday Retail Forecast, a deep dive into our projections for the crucial retail months of November and December.

 

We project online retail sales to reach $44.7 billion during November and December, a year-over-year increase of 8% -- evidence of the online space’s proven status as the retail industry’s growth engine. We expect this growth to be driven by the increasing number of online holiday buyers and by the large retailers gaining market share from their smaller counterparts.

 

The Index of Consumer Sentiment, as well as our own pre-holiday survey show that consumers will be shopping, but will also hold a tight grip on their purse strings. For example, 39% of online consumers plan to wait before making a purchase to see if the items they want will go on sale and 24% of online holiday buyers intend to try lower-cost alternatives to the brands they typically purchase.

 

The current economic environment makes this holiday season especially unique. Unlike previous holiday seasons, online retailers will manage to the bottom line, rather than chase sales. To this end, they plan to implement tactics like keeping leaner inventories, increasing customer engagement, or enhancing their online merchandising and social shopping tools.

 

Look to Forrester to provide you with updates and further consumer data as we roll into the holiday season. Happy selling!

Calling All Online Retailers! We Want To Hear From You!

[Posted by Patti Freeman Evans]

Forrester just kicked-off our 2009 Retail Executive Survey, and we want your input.

This survey looks at online retailers' organizations and topics relevant to the challenges currently facing their roles including:

 

·     eBusiness technology decisions

·     Globalization

·     Social media and mobile trends

·     Online customer service

·     Online merchandizing tactics

·     And more!

The survey takes just about 15 minutes to complete and all of the data will be used anonymously and in aggregate. And as a thank you for completing this survey, you will be able to access the data to help benchmark against your peers once the survey is closed.

 

The results from the survey will serve Forrester's eBusiness and retail research agenda; we look forward to gaining insight from your responses!

 

Click here to take the survey.

  

What financial service eBusiness execs will be saying in 2013

[Posted by Brad Strothkamp}

There is a great article in the Las Vegas Journal based on a speech by Macy's CEO, Terry Lundgren, at this year's Shop.org retail conference.

The gist of the speech is that he went from non-believer to a believer in the power of eBusiness as their online sales went from $30,000 in 1996 to over $1 billion today.

Everybody involved with eBusiness in financial services should read this article as it speaks to many of the questions financial service execs have about eBusiness including:

• Understanding a changing customer - "It's clear to me the customer has evolved and changed the way they shop and we have to change with them. There's no going back,"
• Online influenced sales- :"Every dollar spent online influences $5.77 spent in the store over the next 10 days"
• Role of ratings and reviews - "We were worried about what customers would say on product reviews. We realized that if you start getting bad reviews on a product, get rid of that product. Stop doing business with that particular product."
• Channel conflict- "He never worried about someone shopping online and not going into a store. What he did worry about was people shopping online with another company."

I fully hope and expect the CEO of a major financial institution to be giving this type of speech four years from now.

Brad

Twitter and Online Customer Service: Are Your Ears Burning?

[Posted by Diane Clarkson]

 

A recent analysis by PR firm Burson-Marsteller and Proof Digital Media found that more than half of Fortune 100 companies are using Twitter with two thirds of these companies using Twitter for some kind of customer service function.

 

In other customer service channels, companies pick up the telephone or open an email to hear about customers' issues. Customer service on Twitter is not simply about responding. Think of Twitter as a conversation. You may be a participant in that conversation  with a direct message and the expectation of a response. Or you may be the topic of a conversation if your customers are tweeting their complaints to warn others or vent their frustrations. You will only hear this conversation if you are listening. Twitter gives you the opportunity to shift from being the topic to a participant.  If you respond well, you can convert a frustrated customer into a happy one while salvaging your reputation amongst their listeners.

 

Recently, blogger Heather Armstrong was frustrated with the service she’d received (or not received) from Maytag and, without satisfaction in other customer service channels, took to Twitter to vent. Her complaints about the company reached her one million followers. The next morning, she was contacted by someone from Whirlpool, Maytag’s parent company, who resolved the problem. Ms Armstrong tweeted her satisfaction.

 

Granted, Ms Armstrong is not your average customer. In August 2009, she was featured on Forbes list of the Most Influential Women in Media.  This incident has sparked debate over whether or not a media personality should their celebrity to complain about customer service.  eBusiness professionals should consider this debate as less important than whether or not they are listening to Twitter to know what people – anyone – are saying about their brands.

 

There are many potential eBusiness benefits to Twitter and I wrote about this in May 2009 in a report called “How Twitter Can Influence eBusiness”.   I will be publishing a report next month looking at Twitter and online customer service.

 

I believe more and more people will reach out to Twitter for customer service over the coming year.  That growth will bring expectations for instantaneous and personal response. Meeting these high expectations will have implications across many business areas including staffing and training, operational structure, CRM and knowledge base management.

 

If you are attending Forrester’s Consumer Forum in Chicago on October 26 -27, I will be presenting on “How Twitter Can Influence eBusiness: Assessing the Twitter Opportunity” and hope to see you there.

 

You can follow me on twitter.com/diane_clarkson

Measuring Fraud Rates And Multichannel Progress

by Elizabeth Davis

 

No! They’re not related, they’re just on our mind and topics of our latest surveys for eBusiness executives. The eBusiness and Channel Strategy research team maintains a panel that we survey online each quarter on a variety of topics (join here if you’re not already a member).

 

Our last survey looked at what eBusiness managers are doing about fraud in light of the recession. We found that, for the most part, fraud hasn’t increased with the recession. eBusiness leaders plan to spend $23 million on technology on their customer-facing online sites to detect and combat fraud, and they currently attribute losing 0.6% of their sales to fraud. You can read more here: The State Of Fraud In eBusiness.

 

This quarter, we’re surveying our panelists on their eBusiness teams’ multichannel sales and service strategy and how well their companies meet customers' needs across channels.

 

Care to weigh in? You can take the online survey here, and it will only take 15 minutes to complete. The survey is completely confidential, and we only publish aggregated data.

 

In addition, many of our findings will be presented and discussed in great detail at our Consumer Forum in Chicago on October 28 and 29.

 

We really hope you can take a few minutes out of your day to complete the survey.

How can travel companies benefit more from user generated content?

[Posted by Henry Harteveldt]

Hello again.

I'm wrapping up my report on why travelers post their ratings and reviews. This was the winning topic that we asked our eBusiness blog readers to vote on. Thanks again to those of you who voted.

The good news is that travelers are more likely to post content like ratings, reviews, and pictures on travel Web sites to share good news with their fellow travelers, rather than bad news. I hope that's because more travelers interact with travel firms that exceed their expectations, rather than travelers having low expectations and simply pleased that nothing went wrong. The reality is likely a mix of both.

If you're a travel eBusiness or marketing professional, I'd sincerely value your opinions about user generated content (UGC) -- primarily ratings and reviews -- for one simple reason. I want to be sure that we write the most useful possible report. Among the questions we'd appreciate your input on are:

• What does your organization do to mine the massive amount of user generated content (UGC) about your brand, destination, or sector of the industry? Do you feel the investment of time and money is worth it? Why?
• If you don't allow UGC on your Web sites, why is that? Budget, technology -- the fear of someone saying something negative?
• Are you using UGC as part of your customer service or product/training improvement programs? How? What benefits have you seen?
• Is ROI a factor in your decision making? Why or why not?
• What potential benefits from UGC do see as being more, or less, useful to your organization and its objectives, and why?

I'd enjoy learning your thoughts. They'll help make the recommendations we offer that much more relevant to you.

As always, thanks for your time.

Henry

Introducing my new coverage area: eCommerce & Online Customer Service

[Posted by Diane Clarkson]

These are certainly challenging economic times and online customer service has never been more important to achieving eBusiness goals.

I’m very excited to announce that I will be taking on a new coverage area on the eBusiness and Channel strategy team and will now be focusing my research on Online Customer Service.

My first three reports have recently been published: “Financial Web Sites Need Customer Service Help”, “Travel Website Customer Service is Far From Perfect”, and “Online Retail Customer Service Availability Needs Some Improvement”.

I’ll be presenting a teleconference on “Improving Online Customer Service Availability By Strengthening the Basics: A Review Of Financial, Travel, And Retail Web Sites’ on Thursday, August 27, 2009 1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m. Eastern time. I’ll present the findings of Forrester's evaluation of online customer service availability on 90 leading eBusiness Web sites across the financial services, travel, and retail industries. You can register for this teleconference by clicking here.

In the coming months, I will be looking at how online customer service can drive eBusiness, including:
– Understanding consumer preferences
– Developing online customer service strategies
– Best practices for deploying self-service, email, IM Chat, Click to Call
– Social media as online self-service, including Twitter, online communities
– Benchmarking online customer service availability and effectiveness

I look forward to delving deeper into these topics and invite your feedback on current and suggestions for upcoming research.

Travel Email Customer Service Leaves Much To Be Desired

[Posted by Diane Clarkson]

When I speak with travel eBusiness professionals, it is clear that they value their customers and want this to be reflected throughout their online research to their travel experience.

Why then do travelers overwhelmingly feel that travel companies are failing to make them feel valued? Only 29% of online travelers believe travel companies are making strong efforts to make them feel valued.

I’ve wondered if there is simply a disconnection – that the best efforts of a dedicated marketing team can be thwarted by a weather delay, bad traffic, or a grumpy desk clerk.

We will be publishing a report shortly on making travelers feel valued. In the course of researching this report, I’ve paid a lot of attention to the how travel companies communicate. There is an old expression that the “devil is in the details”. I disagree. Sometimes the big picture is the accumulation of details.

I undertook a Web track in the course of researching this upcoming report to look at how travel companies respond to a basic customer service question. The results were disappointing. I was almost always thanked for writing and frequently told that I was a valued customer. But these warm comments were undone by:

- Auto-acknowledgements - when I received one - rarely addressed me by name.
- Long response times. The assurances of my value were undermined by advice that I wouldn’t receive an answer for several days – in one case, 7 – 14 business days.
- Irrelevant replies. I was asked to explain why I wanted to know, given completely unrelated information and, in one case, it appears the person replying cut and paste the answer and inadvertently included the beginning of the salutation from another correspondence.
- Nameless replies. Some emails were sent by nameless people. One, curiously, had the typed signature of the CEO which was probably well-intentioned but disingenuous.
- Self-interest. My emailed comment was not a request to be included on promotion lists and defaulting the permission to “yes” felt pushy.
- No reply whatsoever. Three days after my initial email, I am still awaiting a reply from one third of the travel companies I contacted.

 These may seem like small issues. But they are important.  Travelers’ willingness to overlook disappointment is only as deep as the goodwill previously banked. For some of the companies that I contacted, my goodwill bank is empty.

My report will be published shortly. Hopefully I’ll have received a reply to all of my customer service inquiries by then.

Hotel professionals: Your thoughts about 2010 can get you free Forrester research

[Posted by Henry Harteveldt]

Hello again.

The global hotel industry is battling some tough times. To get a better idea of the industry's outlook for 2010 and the role you see distribution playing in your efforts, we're inviting hotel professionals to take a quick (10 minute) online survey. In exchange, we'll send you a complimentary summary of our findings after we complete gathering the data.

Who's eligible?

• You must work for a hotel organziation. We're seeking participants at the corporate or brand level, at a property, or at a management company. For this study, we're not able to accept participants from third-party intermediaries, or from other industry sectors like airlines, GDSs, rental car agencies, etc. That's why we're asking you to contact us (info below), rather than posting a link from here to take the survey.
• Your role must include a meaningful amount of responsibility for or involvement in your hotel's:
  • eBusiness/eCommerce
  • Distribution
  • Sales/marketing
  • Revenue management
  • Owners, GMs, and hotel managers are also welcome to participate

The larger the base of respondents, the more useful the research will be to everyone. I sincerely hope you'll participate. There's no obligation beyond taking the survey. All survey responses will be aggregated. We keep your responses confidential, and we don't share or use your email address for any commercial activities.

To participate, please email me: hharteveldt (at) forrester dot com. Sorry for that funky way of presenting my email address; I'm just trying to avoid the email spam bots.

As always, thanks for your time.

Henry