Companies should not be focusing on Sales
I have encountered many business owners who are keen to embark on selling their products online. The demand is incredibly high when COVID-19 strike and Singapore is in a state of lockdown. So people need to stay at home except when shopping for essential items and groceries. The only way merchants can reach people staying at home is by putting their products online for browsing and purchasing.
The channel of selling products online will continue even after the pandemic. The pandemic forces people to accept this new norm and for merchants to embrace this channel that they might not think possible. However, product selling is part of the product journey, which cuts into the customer journey. Sales itself is not solely selling, and being fixated on this thinking hurts the customer experience in the longer term.
In my opinion, the product journey starts when different raw materials are put together and turning them into a product. The journey ends when the end consumer buys and uses this product. This article will skip where the consumer can circulate the used product back to the manufacturing process. This journey cuts into the customer journey and merges in as part of the customer journey. The customer journey might start when they have the need, and it moves from searching, browsing, buying, receiving, and using the product. Depending on how the company defines this journey, it can move to post-sales service and encourage repeat buying.
When a company understands the Customer Lifetime Value, they will know that Sales is only part of the experience. Jumping on e-Commerce is the start, and when there are gaps and disruptions in the entire journey, it could bring more detrimental outcomes than increasing sales. I like to share with you my recent experience in buying online from a Direct Sales company.
This company offers online purchases, and after making the payment, I decided to go to their office to collect my purchases. The primary consideration is that the delivery service does not determine the date and time that I am home. Instead, they assume that I am home all day to wait for them, which is unrealistic. Thus, there’s a gap in transforming the future of delivery services, which I will share in my next article. Coming back to my story, after selecting this self-collection option, I can’t state the date I can collect my purchase. Well, I thought they might follow up with me via phone call or email that my product is ready for collection a few days later. Unfortunately, I received nothing from them. Thus, I decided to make a trip last Saturday to try my luck to collect my purchase. Well, they are not selling anything special that is not available on the shelves of major retailers. With this experience, I will think twice before buying anything from them again in the future.
Can they do something different to improve customers’ experience? For example, they can consider having a follow-up email to tell the customer when the purchase is ready for collection. They can also give the customer the option to select the collection date and work with their fulfilment team on meeting this dateline. The company can also consider working with delivery services that use the pick-up boxes, which are gaining popularity. This service allows the customer to pick up based on their availability.
The keyword here is Fulfilment.
We need to have a channel to sell our products, but it is equally important to look into how they can fulfil these purchases. Without an avenue to sell online, you might get customers’ feedback that you are not offering this channel. However, the majority will continue to buy from you when they are used to the traditional channel. But you will get lots of negative reviews that hurt the brand when you have a new channel, and you cannot fulfil those purchases.
I collected my purchases from their office, and I realised that they were not customer-oriented. Instead of focusing on serving customers, they are somewhat distracted in performing their other tasks on hand. Now, I know why this is happening.
