Creating impactful digital experiences that delight customers can be daunting, even for the largest brands. More is better — more data, more insights, happier shoppers. But more can also feel like ‘too much’ if you don’t know where to start. As you’re planning for 2022, here are four strategies to help you focus and refine the digital experience to realize immediate ROI in 2022 and beyond.
1. Go beyond search queries to understand shoppers’ intent.
Delivering exactly what the shopper is searching for is great. This is still true. But you can take it a step further to delight shoppers and gain an advantage over competitors. New technologies such as semantic vector search have made it possible to not only deliver what buyers are searching for but also fulfill their goals. It’s time to evolve your thinking from precision to value based relevance.
Here’s a scenario. You’re searching for a “wild king salmon fillet” on your favorite grocery website to get it delivered in time for dinner prep. Yes, the search should return the precise results for this precise query. But what if it also displayed results that are relevant to your dinner goal? Your intent isn’t just to find and buy a piece of fish; maybe you’re hoping to cook the fish with garlic and olive oil and garnish with thinly sliced lemons. If the website returns all of those results — no, ‘garlic’ is not the same as a ‘salmon fillet’ — you’re getting what you’re searching for and your goal is fulfilled. Your grocery shopping experience was made super delightfully easy.
This new way of thinking — goal-oriented product discovery — may require some consideration and negotiation internally. Semantic vector search can help enrich search results with related product assortments based on your customer’s habits, reducing friction and shortening the path to purchase.
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2. Use signals to personalize each shopper’s journey.
In the digital world, personalization is the best tool retailers have to make customers feel like they’re browsing with a personal shopper by their side. Retailers can rely on NLP (natural language processing) capabilities, signals (your shoppers’ actions/breadcrumbs) and content/user analytics to create that special “you-know-me” experience. With signals and machine learning, your commerce team can identify where each individual shopper is in his/her journey, predict his/her goals and deliver contextually relevant results that accelerate the path to purchase.
3. Apply AI to reduce bounces and convert shoppers through site search.
Wondering how many lost sales can be attributed to no-result search queries? Identify the number of visits that exit your website from a zero results page. Multiply that number by your conversion rate and AOV. That’s how much money is lost from search engines overlooking relevant products in your catalog. For most websites, that number is quite high. When reviewing the zero results report, you’ll notice there are a multitude of zero result problems, including misspellings, in-stock/out-of-stock discrepancies, vocabulary mismatch and products that are commonly searched for but not carried.
A solution to this is AI-based semantic vector search, which was implemented by one of the top five retailers to reduce null results by 91%, resulting in a 20% increase in clickthrough rates from search and a 28% increase in AOV. Leverage this approach to attack your zero results report rather than fixing them one at a time with rules.
4. Connect customers and employees for a delightful digital experience.
Great digital experiences are not delivered in silos. A recent Forrester report found that companies are struggling to connect employee experience (EX) and customer experience (CX), but those that do report greater revenue, operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.
For example, as a shopper researches a product on your website, she may call or chat with your customer service agent to find out more details. Having signal data about the shopper can empower the agent to answer questions and provide recommendations that the agent knows the customer would prefer. Not only can the purchase be closed quickly, your AOV can also increase, since the shopper is more likely to buy the suggested products. This is the fully connected experience in which retailers can capture omnichannel insights and improve the shopper experience at every touch point.
As you head into 2022, digital experiences will continue shaping your brand perception and success. Consider the four strategies above to accelerate and enhance your ecommerce outcomes. Retailers that invest in connected digital experiences across all channels will edge out competition and win loyal customers.
For a deep dive into how to deliver what shoppers want with search and personalization, join our Lunch & Learn session at the 2021 Retail Innovation Conference.
Garrett Schwegler is the Program Manager for Digital Commerce at Lucidworks, a leader in AI-powered search. Over the years he’s led multiple teams through holiday preparedness initiatives for both ecommerce and omnichannel strategies. Schwegler has also worked as a strategic consultant with Global 2000 ecommerce companies to improve product discovery and develop business strategy. In his current role he leads the Lucidworks Digital Commerce team’s initiatives to power a connected customer experience for some of the world’s biggest ecommerce brands.
