Virtual dialogues: Did you say sale? What sale? In general, consumer (B2C) e-com sites treat their customers as though they are "lucky" to simply be engaged with such wonderful technology. In return for the convenience of shopping from home, customers are expected to wait patiently for pages to load, find their own products, answer their own questions, resolve their own service issues, disclose personal data, print their own receipts, track their own orders, and somehow increase their loyalty to the site and brand at the same time. The ultimate "self-serve" The "bag your own groceries" approach has limited utility. Nowhere is this more apparent than in luxury product and B2B sites. The demographics and psychographics of online shoppers suggest that the people who shop in Best of Breed B2C sites are successful and choose the online channel when they don't have time to run downtown. These are not people who want to stumble around a warehouse of products and find their way to the checkout line. These are people who expect and appreciate a quick welcome and some guidance. Then, if you remember who they are and what they purchased the next time they come in, they may enjoy the experience even more. There are proven ways to generate this "relationship" feeling that transcends the transactional style of e-sales commonly employed in most large e-com sites. Business 2.0 magazine reports that 62% of e-shoppers have an income higher than $50,000 a year. Nationwide, only 35% of shoppers have an income that high". (Cox News Service "The Gender Gap" 4-27-00) He lived to tell about it One high-level banking executive reported this past holiday season that he had purchased all his Christmas gifts online, and it was clear he counted this among his major accomplishments. How surprising, we thought: some sort of man-triumphs-over-computer thing! He did, after all, avoid the icy roads, heavy packages, and mall frenzy. No matter his frustration, the number of timed-out attempts, nor that only 25% of the gifts he selected were actually in stock. No matter that the black leather gloves he bought for his wife arrived in purple rabbit's fur. No matter that he was assured his orders would be delivered by December 23rd, and some arrived January 18th. Somehow, some way, he did it! If all e-shoppers had his tenacity and personal goal orientation, we wouldn't have to write this article. But we know he is a rare exception. It now seems clear that most e-customer experiences lack several important experiential ingredients. Up until now the composition of such ingredients has remained a mystery. There are ample products, reasonable prices and decent promotions on the Internet. But…where's the sale? Currently, a customer has to figure out how to execute the entire purchase sequence. This is the first time in history, as far as we know, that the burden of the sales task is placed directly on the buyer. Any wonder e-com sales are floundering? In traditional settings (non-e-com) successful sales organizations employ a well-established science of tactical selling. Why haven't mission-critical e-com firms employed these proven methods of selling optimization? History knows but the web ignores Over the past few hundred years, rigorous sales research methods have resulted in effective selling styles that have evolved to better address the needs of customers. However, somewhere along the line to the web, e-com sales process fell off the wagon. Even the best e-com sites take virtually no advantage of well-established and scientifically valid sales methodologies. Remember the fabled snake oil sale? How about street corner demonstrations or con men? Who can remember door-to-door cleaning product sales, or the "guilt" sale of encyclopedias ("don't you want your children to be smart?")? Who has ever received a product you didn't order, then a few days later a bill ("you mean you didn't order it?"). Who ever signed up for a book or music club and then couldn't cancel the order because there was no phone number? We can now say these were pretty lame tactics, but they were once typical. No haggle is a sure thing Subtly, however, progress has been occurring. Even the high-pressure tactics of car dealers in the 80's have reached new levels of respectability in the new millennium - due in part to the keen foresight of Lexus who was the first to realize that if you "consult" with the customer and guide the customer to an appropriate solution, the customer will buy and be happy. This was followed by Saturn's low-stress, no-haggle policy. Put simply: The sale matters No matter how great or beautiful the store (the site) is, no matter the quality of merchandise, the delivery time or the price, if a customer comes in and you say the wrong thing to the customer, or fail to say the right thing, you may blow that sale. Sadly this happens online with staggering frequency. In fact "shopping cart abandonment syndrome" has been deemed the term for the countless abandoned efforts of seemingly interested customers who spend the time to shop but then unaccountably quit the site. Market researchers say the rate at which shoppers abandon their online carts runs between 25 percent (Andersen Consulting) on the low end and 78 percent (Bizrate.com) on the high end. Boston Consulting Group estimates that retailers lost $16 billion in potential sales in 2000 due to abandoned carts. And, when we analyze what a customer goes through to make a purchase, we are often surprised that so many of them figure it out by themselves, despite the hurdles, frustrations, distractions, and lack of guidance on how to do it. "Perhaps the most common mistake entrepreneurs made was to down play the intricacies of retailing to begin with." Newsweek "Clicks For Bricks" February 12, 2001 Science, what science? There are common elements that are present in almost any sale, whether face-to-face, by telephone, through e-mail, or online. We know that the best, most successful consultative sales processes are dynamic and non-linear. Online selling has unique advantages and disadvantages. Surprisingly, we can capture many of the "best practices" of consultative selling and leverage them in the online arena. Here are a few guiding principles: I. Change Of Mindset: Proactive v. Reactive Selling Continually ask: Do we strive to be a catalog company (reactive), or a great sales organization (proactive)? II. Crown Jewel Treatment Whether you are MuddyUsedTracktorTires.com or DiamondsFurs&Ferarris.com, you must know two things: how do our customers feel they are being treated, and how can we make their experience better? III. Create a Welcoming Presence Properly welcome visitors and customers. If you don't say, "welcome," a person may not feel welcome. Take the time to orient the customer to the site and the sales process on the site. IV. Guided v. Do-it-Yourself Offer appropriate "dialogue paths" for visitors. Be considerate of the visitors' objectives and time constraints. If they come to browse, don't try to sell. If they come to purchase, don't waste their time on education. If they come for service, by all means don't make them first step through 18 screens on new products. V. Simplify the Site to Make the Sale The less distracted the customer, the more the customer will buy. Remember the words of John Henry Patterson: "No advertising page is big enough to sell two ideas." When a customer comes in to buy, prioritize that one sale over the opportunity to advertise new merchandise. VI. Leverage Proven Process Methodology Break down the sale into its elements. Set proper expectations. Ask some key questions before recommending products. Find out how the customer is doing along the way. Leverage all your resources to make sure the customer has as clear an understanding of the product as possible, in order to ensure satisfaction and minimize returns. Thank the customer, follow up, and ask permission to contact them (market to them) later. If you follow these guiding principles, customers will become loyal. Consider the shoppers By creating appropriate dialogue (text paths), the customer experiences a more interactive, guided approach to selecting a product. In this case, the sales dialogue enables quick customer acquisition and dramatically improves the user experience. This type of virtual dialogue drives the best UI design principles as it focuses the user on the task, considers the function first and the presentation second, conforms to the user's view of the task, and uncomplicates the user's task. Revolutionary measurements Forget all other measurements for the moment and begin to measure a site on only two levels: how well it sells and how much it sells. In the end, does it really matter the average hits per day, page views, visit lengths, unique vs. return visits, or international v. domestic hits? It is easy to get lost in the excitement of site activity, but the challenge is not to succumb to the delusion that you can substitute movement for progress. Elizabeth Rhodes Biography August 13, 2001