Before the advent of
ecommerce, was it easier for a business to monitor the opinions of its
customers? It went something like this: A customer walks into a store and asks
an employee if they carry a certain product. When the employee responds “no,” the
customer leaves.
Another scenario: A customer
walks into a store, after 15 minutes of wandering around the store confused,
they ask an employee where to find a certain product. They proceed to complain,
“This place is like a maze, I can’t find anything.” After the customer finds
the product and proceeds to checkout, he has to ask the employee to repeat
herself several times because the music in the store is too loud.
With storefronts like these,
you are able to see how customers interact with your store firsthand, and how
all the various elements of your store influence the path to purchase. This
sort of information is extremely valuable from a marketing perspective.
Figuring out what makes your customers tick in an online setting can be a
little bit more difficult in certain aspects.
You can’t have employees
present every step of the way to field questions, and address complaints.
Luckily, there is a variety of analytics software available to help better
understand how customers interact with your site.
One of the most interesting
tools I came across for monitoring the ecommerce process much like you would do
in a real life store situation was a program called ClickTale. ClickTale
enables you to view videos of users as they navigate your website, and actually
view the visit as if you were right there with the customer.
“It’s as if
you were looking over their shoulders. You can even see their cursor and their
keystrokes” (Conversion, 2013).
Clicktale is
an innovative program that can provide valuable insights for a business. But
the ultimate goal of web analytics is not to reproduce the real-life store
front scenario where employees can watch the whereabouts of customers and
answer questions, its goal is to create an even more trackable, more measurable
commerce environment that is far more efficient than a storefront. In a
storefront, you might see some benefits that come from face to face transactions,
but the Internet is inherently structured for in depth measurement and
analysis. And the fact remains, “online sales are growing at approximately 10
times the rate of brick and mortar.” (Forbes, 2013)
It is no
secret that more and more customers are purchasing online, and gaining insight
into the online customer group is instrumental in optimizing resources both online
and offline. Here’s why:
Let’s say a
custom fit fishing rod has been selling extremely well in store but poorly
online. Research has indicated that the exit rate is high on the product
description page of the custom fit rod. In addition, in store managers have
reported that customers have been having a great deal of questions about the
rod before purchasing it. In response, you decide to implement a live chat
function to the online product description page of the rod. Consequently,
online sales go up significantly, and the work-load is decreased in-store.
This is just a
small example of the far-reaching benefits that web analytics can provide
for a business both online and in-store.
Conversion Rate Experts.
(2013).14 tools that reveal why potential customers leave your website. Retrieved
3 November 2013 from http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/understanding-your-visitors/
Arthur, L. (2013) Which is
better for retail sales? Online or offline engagement.Retrieved 3 November 2013
from http://www.forbes.com/sites/lisaarthur/2013/03/12/which-is-better-for-retail-sales-online-or-offline-customer-engagement/
Clicktale. (2010). Clicktale
Customer Service Analytics Demo. [Video File]. Retrieved 3 November 2013 from
www.youtube.com/embed/DjtrbZO_8eo Embed: <iframe width="560"
height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/DjtrbZO_8eo"
frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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