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Why web analytics won’t necessarily tell you how well you’ve done this Christmas

I can’t believe I’m writing about this already but Christmas is coming – fast. Probably like a lot you, I’m going to be doing most of my shopping online. Spending a couple of evenings online is far preferable for me than battling down a busy high street. So online retailers in the UK can count on me making a modest contribution to the estimated £7 billion in online sales in the run up to Christmas this year.

I imagine that e-tailers all over the world are now refining their campaigns, optimising their store fronts and adjusting their merchandising strategies to maximise their returns during the peak period. But there was a timely reminder earlier this month from the IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group) here in the UK (an equivalent to Shop.org) that e-commerce is still a relatively immature channel for most retailers and that some aspects of their operations still require significant refinement.

The IMRG highlighted in its report that e-tailers need to improve their delivery services or face a backlash from consumers. They asserted that too many basic mistakes are being made, for example putting small items in large packages which then don’t fit through letterboxes. This view form the IMRG highlighted to me the need to consider the whole end-to-end process when we think about optimising the customer experience rather than just what happens on the website.

A huge amount of time and effort goes into optimising the visitors experience on the website and that’s great. Quite often on websites there is still quote a lot to be put right once decent measurement systems have been put in place. However, all that effort comes to little if the value created by a positive website experience is destroyed by a poor post sales experience.

When online, sites often attempt to survey me to find out about who I am and whether I was satisfied with my experience. Whilst I don’t answer every single one I applaud the attempt to understand more about me and to find out how I feel about their website, assuming that they do anything with the data. However, I struggle to remember if anyone has ever contacted me after I have bought something online to find out what I thought about the overall experience and importantly what I would do in the future as a result. Just because someone is satisfied with the website experience, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they end up wanting to do business with you again.

I would therefore suggest that if you don’t have a programme in place that gives you input to your visitors overall opinion of your performance then you’re missing a vital component of your overall measurement strategy. As well as understanding satisfaction with the on-site elements of the transaction, look to understand satisfaction with the off-site components of the transaction. For example:

  • Were there any problems with the payment processes?
  • What was their opinion on the delivery times and prices?
  • Did the order tracking capability work well?
  • Did the delivery arrive on time?
  • Did they use customer services/My Account etc?
  • Was that a good experience?

I saw a good example of such a programme being put in place at Emetrics in Washington. StubHub.com presented on what they were doing to track the overall customer experience. In addition to phone surveys, website pop-up surveys and exit surveys, they also ran “post event surveys” two weeks after the transaction had occurred on the site to find out if everything went smoothly for both the buyer and the seller and if not, why not.

As conversion optimisation processes become increasingly tuned, other aspects of the customer experience are likely to be where retention battles might be won or lost. So, find out what impact the experience had on the likelihood of them doing business with you again. Propensity scores such as “likelihood to return” and “likelihood to recommend” strong indicators of satisfaction and customer lifetime value.

So when it comes to evaluating performance in January let’s not just focus on sales, orders, conversion rates and the like. Consider also whether the experience worked for the customer as well – all of it. Remember, a customer is for life, not just for Christmas!

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