2 July 2019
The human touch
Personalisation within e-commerce is hardly the new boy in class and many e-sellers have already integrated personalisation as a strategic part of their digital business and with good reason - it strengthens the relation to the individual consumer and increases the conversion. But now the smoking technological development has taken personalisation to completely new heights and has made it possible for you e-sellers to bring ‘the human touch’ into your e-commerce.
The ultimate online 1:1 personalisation
Today, personalisation is hotter than ever before and you have to be searching for a long time to find webshops without personalised recommendations on product pages and pop-up chats ready to help the customer further in his or her shopping journey. However, at the world’s largest retail conference ‘NRF Retail’s BIG Show’ in New York, where Hesehus of course was represented, it became evident that we have only seen the top of the personalisation iceberg. More and more personalisation technologies see the light of day and they all open up to new ways for you e-sellers to strengthen the personal relation to your customers.
In particular one personalisation technology caught our interest during the conference in New York, namely a new chat function where the online consumer via a few clicks can get direct contact to an in-store salesperson. This 1:1 personalisation technology follows as a natural extension of the customer service chat we know from many webshops in Denmark but it also makes it possible for you e-sellers to advise and guide your potential online customers in ways which were previously reserved for the physical shops.
“It’s effectively opening the playing field to everyone, allowing people to grow their own customer base as they want”
Pearson Poon, Executive Director in Harvey Nichols
On demand personal shopping experience
It is not only among the American brands that the new chat service is hot – also large European brands have given it a warm welcome. One of the companies which have been very successful with 1:1 personalisation is the British high fashion department store Harvey Nichols.
By means of its new chat service, Harvey Nichols has made it possible for its online customers to receive the same competent guidance and style tips as in its physical shops. The customer and the salesperson can chat in the usual way and they can send pictures back and forth and video chat which makes it possible for the salesperson to offer precisely the service that the individual customer needs - answer questions, open product pages directly in the chat, go into detail with a product, take the customer to explore the shop or even try on items for the customer.
In this way, Harvey Nichols provides its online customers with an extraordinary and frictionless shopping experience which is customised to the individual customer’s needs. As a result Harvey Nichol’s online customers are 10 times more likely to complete a purchase and spend up to 63% more when they shop live with a salesperson.
“The original aim was to propel online growth and while clothes can look great digitally, ‘service’ was proving extremely difficult to replicate. In short, we wanted to make online feel more immersive”
Pearson Poon, Executive Director in Harvey Nichols
Keep your friends close, and your customers closer
The technology behind this highly personalised chat function not only provides the possibility of helping with the customers' hassle here and now - on the contrary. Based on the customer’s interactions with the webshop and the salesperson in the chat, as well as physically in the shop, a highly detailed customer database can be built.
The large amount of personalised customer data and the many features, which the chat contains, make it possible for the salespersons to build a proactive and close relationship to their customers. They can for example send a message to a specific customer when a relevant collection or a certain product type, which the customer has previously requested, has arrived in the shop which helps sales and increases the brand loyalty.
Are you interested in hearing more about how you can take personalisation to completely new heights and give your e-commerce a ‘human touch’ with 1:1 personalisation? We would like to invite you for a cup of coffee or we can visit you for a non-binding talk about your options.
Contact Casper Bo Jørgensen, Customer Relations Manager, at: +45 23 30 79 56 or write to: cbj@hesehus.dk
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