This year, Etail Canada was held on May 11-14. Etail Canada brings together the greatest Canadian Ecommerce and Digital Marketing minds, as well as some of the strongest brands in Canada, for some solid sessions, panels, roundtable discussions, and some great networking.
I sit on the Advisory Board for Etail Canada, and always leave the event inspired and relieved. Inspired because there are many people like me who love this industry, and are passionate about it; relieved because I feel with the leaders that were at that conference, we are in good hands while Ecommerce in Canada tries to play a mega game of catch-up to our friends to the South.
The Actual Packaging is the Last Thing to Think About
I sat on a panel and gave a talk about how to surprise and delight your customers when they receive their parcel.
This is more than how to make a brown box beautiful. It goes deeper than that. I ask that you forget about the box for a second, and concentrate on the experience. How do you make the experience unique and special for your customers when they open their package? Here are just a few ideas you can implement.
Consider Where and When Customers Open the Parcel
It would be fantastic if all our packaging looked pristine and was gold-plated. But that’s just not feasible for many of us retailers or for many among us without huge budgets. Customized packaging is expensive. We all seem to be shipping in the same polybags and brown boxes. So we have to think of eventful things we can do once they open the package.
When I was with Buffalo David Bitton, we knew a lot of students were ordering, and as per usual among students, they were studying late into the night. So we extracted the orders that were being ordered past midnight in Eastern and Western Canada, and sent them coffee gift cards with their order. We then sent them an email a few days later saying: “we hope you enjoyed coffee on us…thanks for your recent order. Can’t wait to see you again.”
If you make the experience unique, customers will remember.
Inserting a “Surprise and Delight” Item
If you have a buying team, make sure you work with them. (If you don’t have one, it’s even more important to read on).
Plan ahead and work with the buying team to reward your best customers. For example, if you work for a fashion brand, buy extra ties and tees for men, and extra accessories and perfume for women (substitute any item you may wish that has smaller price points and higher margins).
When one of our better online male customers bought something, say a tie and a shirt, we threw in an extra tie he could wear with that shirt (and we slid in a branded note that said “2 ties are always better than 1.”)
I bet you they remembered that experience the next time they wanted to shop and thought about browsing some competitor sites, whose online shopping end-to-end experience was generally very vanilla.
Incite Your Customers to Share Your Story
So how do you get your customers to work for you and tell your story post delivery? How do you make them want to share the awesome consumer experience they just had with your brand with their friends, family, and social networks?
When I was at Mexx, we inserted hand-written letters with a unique 1-800 number, our social media links, and specific hashtags for this particular “Thank You” note campaign. (Side note: My current and former team recently found out there’s electronic letter writing machines out there that write letters for you. They definitely let me know about it. Here is an example of one company’s foray into the letter writing automation.
We tracked the results of the Thank You note campaign, and we had about 5% of customers who received the hand-written note call in to the 1-800 number and thank us, and we had another 4% that used our hashtags on social media channels.
Make it Personalized, Which Means More Than First Name
Make it extremely personalized, and I’m not talking simply about including their first name. Look at their order, their history, and their location and personalize it. I remember there was a man in Vancouver who ordered something and the Canucks were in the NHL playoffs and we wrote a little note stating: “Good luck this week. Go Canucks Go! We hope this shirt brings them luck.” Now our brand had nothing to do with sports, but sometimes it’s ok to go beyond your brand’s value proposition if it’s authentic.
For another we said “You’ll look great at work this week. Don’t forget, this jean outfit can also be worn for post-work fun.”
And one of my favourites, when some of our customers ordered a tie at Mexx, we would insert a leaflet on “how to tie a tie” with various knots, including a QR code that pushed them to our YouTube channel, to actually show them how to tie the various knots. Check out that video here.
If you’re in travel, an idea could be to insert good luck travel notes and travel tips when they purchase travel items or vacations.
The Relationship Should Continue Even After Package is Delivered
It doesn’t need to end when the customer receives the package either. If we know a bit about intent, or what the customer will be doing next, we can take this further. An example could be to call your customers a few days after they receive their package, and discuss the experience. Was it was they ordered? Was the package damaged at all? Was the ordering process a hassle? What can be improved?
Send them an email a few days later, perhaps asking for a review of the product they bought (incentivizing them to review always helps push them to do so).
Also, empower your customer service people to be different and helpful, rather than script-driven and boring. Let’s have some customer fun. Think of Nordstrom and how they handle customer service.
Customers Are Loyal to What Companies Stand For
The point is that if you don’t build and form relationships, customers will just want discounts, which could be had anywhere. Consumers are not loyal to companies. They are loyal to what companies stand for.
Remember: if your product or service is not unique, you are always going to compete on price. Try to be unique in every touchpoint you have with the consumer.
What are some cool customer initiatives you have done after the customer received their package? What brands are doing it best?
Leave a Reply