Traditionally, there has been a clear divide between what consumers and commerce sites look for in a transaction. Simply put, consumers are looking to buy, while companies are looking to sell.
But the relationship between buyers and sellers is constantly evolving. In fact, customers are now completing 70%–90% of the buying journey prior to engaging a vendor. However, it doesn’t have to be that way.
What if you could provide prospective customers with all the information they need with product catalogs, tactical advice, user/expert opinions, and more? This is how you truly build meaningful, engaging relationships with your customers that outlast individual transactions.
By ensuring better customer engagement, you ensure a better buying process, which translates to better results. One study showed that fully engaged customers represented a 23% premium over the average customer to businesses.
Engage buyers – and drive sales – with online user communities
The technology bringing together expert advice and user thoughts around a particular topic has existed for years: It’s the online user community. And while communities have been prevalent, they have been separate from the process of actually buying a product.
According to Gartner, 70% of online communities are destined to fail. Why is this? Standalone consumer communities are ineffective because:
- They don’t focus on a customer’s buying journey
- They aren’t explicitly connected to outcomes
- They don’t provide e-commerce vendors with the insight they need to optimize their marketing investments or merchandizing strategies
Given the importance of customer engagement and the need for effective communities, a golden opportunity exists to combine communities with commerce, enabling customers to research products or services – and then buy them – all in one place. For commerce sites, communities provide an opportunity to guide customers from awareness to consideration to purchase.
Varied customer journeys
Customer journeys vary significantly. One customer may just be looking to buy a simple product, such as a phone charger. For this customer, the e-commerce retailer’s mission is simple: Provide a quick, easy method of validation, such as user ratings and reviews, and then allow the customer to get to their shopping cart quickly and painlessly.
Communities should engage customers at every stage of their buying journey
More complex products require a different approach. Take the example of a washing machine. Most consumers are not going to scan a couple of ratings and click “Buy.” For a bigger purchase, diving right into ratings may increase a customer’s anxiety level and bring about uncertainty. With so many factors to consider – price, features, size, style, energy efficiency, etc. – a fast purchase is no longer important. What’s important is the right purchase.
And to make the right purchase, the consumer is going to want a different level of engagement. For a complex product, having an expert contribute a well-written blog post or participate in a Q&A session may be more effective.
Then consider a consumer in the healthcare industry. Think about someone who had been treated for cancer or dealt with diabetes. They might see a product that worked (or didn’t work) for them and want to share their experiences with a community. Certainly consumers in that space don’t want to be rushed into a purchase; they want to do research, learn, and pay it forward if they beat the ailment.
Intel estimates that by 2020, over 200 billion Internet and software-enabled devices will be in the market. With such an influx of digital products, buyers are going to need to consider basic product variants, such as price, color, and size, as well as a whole array of software characteristics and functionality, making the buying journey that much more complex.
This is what we mean when we talk about the varied journeys that consumers undertake, and this is the challenge we face when creating technology for the e-commerce space. But it’s also why we think communities are the solution when it comes to varied consumer journeys.
For someone buying a simple item, a collection of ratings might suffice, but for those with more complicated needs, integrated communities with features such as blog posts, Q&As, and interactions with other consumers make the e-commerce page that much more engaging and compelling, keeping the customer from jumping off the page to another source and reducing the likelihood that they will shop elsewhere.
Commerce needs community
This phenomenon is only going to increase. In fact, one study predicts that by 2020, 30% of all purchases will be made through an online community.
So if your business is looking to break down the walls between commerce and engagement – connecting with customers on their terms, throughout their journeys – online communities could very well be the answer.