stefanie_parthen

Stefanie Parthen

**The online business is booming. There is almost nothing that cannot be purchased online. Companies employ their own teams that continuously work on improving their online shops, understand customer needs and develop short-term solution strategies. Nevertheless, the question arises as to how customers experience and perceive online shopping. Which aspects of the buying process can cause customer frustration? At what point do customers get so frustrated that they abandon the purchase or switch providers? What strategies can companies use to counteract this and thus retain their customers? **

According to a current study by elaboratum and Trusted Shops from 2020, there are typical moments of frustration for customers who are actually known, but to which perhaps too little attention has been paid so far. In the study <a href="https://www.ecommerce-frustbarometer.de/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow, ">“The E-Commerce Frustration Barometer"</a>, 1,200 participants and 500 shop operators were asked about their greatest pain points. 


### The most annoying situations from the customer's point of view
The greatest potential for frustration for customers can be seen above all in the procedural area. Customers expect goods to be available and are frustrated when items cannot be delivered. If the desired item has finally arrived and unfortunately does not please the customer as expected, a time-consuming returns process annoys the customer. In case of doubt, the customer can only contact the retailer personally. Here the customer expects simple communication channels that are tailored to his needs, but do not always meet these expectations. One of the most important marketing tools is the newsletter. However, if a company sends (too) many advertising e-mails, the customer is simply annoyed by the flood of advertising instead of knowing that they are looked after and understood all round. 

A clear structure of the website is also important. Customers want to be able to click through to the desired product intuitively and quickly without being misled. Online retailers in particular with an extensive and complex range have to struggle with this aspect. Nevertheless, the problem is only ranked 4th among the most frustrating situations and is thus well behind the procedural issues and advertising emails. 


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## Companies need to question themselves 

At the same time, 500 companies, regardless of customer needs, were asked what they see as the greatest levers to avoid customer frustration and to retain customers in the long term. It becomes clear that there is a discrepancy between how companies perceive themselves and how they are perceived by others. For the companies, the biggest shortcomings are: 

1. Insufficient contact options (only 4th place for customers) 

2. Poor availability of goods (only 1st place for customers) 

3. Long loading times and 

4. A long delivery time (only place 8 and 9 for customers) 

Solution approach: Take the perspective of the customer 

All points of criticism were mentioned by both customers and companies, but with different weightings. This survey shows that customer proximity and customer surveys are the most important tools for companies to uncover weaknesses and potential for improvement. A simple means is a survey on the website, in which pre-process topics can be queried easily and quickly, especially with prospects and customers. In order to query the after-sales experiences of the customers in a structured way, however, a survey can be sent out some time after the product has been sent (and thus the product has been used). But page views of FAQ topics or the evaluation of the online search on the website also provide information about customer questions and moments of frustration. These key figures are already available and usually only need to be evaluated in a targeted manner. 

The prioritization of the relevant topics should be based on customer needs. Also "unloved", especially procedural topics are important drivers. The reasons for returns usually also contain valuable information that comes directly from the customer. Even more complex adjustments to business processes are worthwhile if you work on the customer's biggest pain points and can thus optimize the conversion rate. 

Not all measures can and do not have to be implemented immediately. Take the measures with the greatest customer benefit first and prioritize them based on the effort. However, don't always put off complex adjustments into the future. Your customers will thank you and, above all, reward a continuous optimization process with trust and loyalty. 

**We at communicode are happy to support you in optimizing the user experience in your online shop and uncovering further development potential. Our consultants carry out a complete shop analysis and help you turn the pain points into conversion boosters. Talk to us and together we will help your online shop to be even more successful. **

Which strategies can companies use to counteract the frustration on the customer side and thus retain their customers? 

Foto einer Frau, die in einen Bleistift beisst vor einem Laptop

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Frustration-free shopping - learn from your customers' greatest moments of frustration 

**In the future, advertising should be played out more anonymously and group-related instead of being based on individual interests and user behavior. But is that really more effective and doesn't advertising then automatically become meaningless for customers? This can result in poorer click rates and conversions. Do other forms of advertising possibly have to absorb what online advertising may no longer be able to do with them?**



As one of the biggest players in the tracking and advertising business, Google has heralded the end of cookie-related advertising. So far, however, advertisements have worked via personal customer profiles that are created on the basis of third-party cookies. Advertising content can thus be tailored to the user and they can be reached with personal advertising messages. 

## Digital privacy as a driver
The big search engine giant is taking this path, which can certainly be described as a "flight forward". At the same time, Google is repeatedly criticized for collecting all user-related information as a large data octopus and skimming off the greatest possible profits, for example through personalized advertisements and placements. But at the same time, this practice also brings problems. Users are now very well aware of the power of data and want to decide for themselves who is provided with which personal information. Ad blockers are used by many users. 

Digital privacy is paramount and Google is taking this into account by putting the “privacy first” approach first. Customer acceptance and willingness to share data increases when a company like Google collects data transparently and only stores the data that is essential and relevant. Not all information that could be stored in principle is collected. And who is willing to accept that almost all of their behavior on the web can be tracked for relevant advertising? 


### New rules of the game: interest groups 
Advertisements can be placed successfully even without tracking personal customer profiles and customers and their interactions individually. Only the rules of the game for personalized advertising will be changed. Interest groups ensure relevant (if not 1:1 personalized) advertising. And this is at the same time the key to successful advertising: Customers continue to receive product recommendations that match their interests. 

Interest groups are not collected on the basis of individual user behavior but with the help of aggregation and pseudonymization. Targeting advertising to so-called interest groups also enables advertising tailored to the user. The group relies on an approach called "Federated Learning of Cohorts", or FLoC for short. The tracking is shifted to the browser - instead of via cookies as before - and converted into fuzzy hash values. Users with similar interests are assigned to a cohort (interest group) and can be addressed anonymously. Advertising networks will make several advertisements available to the browser in the future. The browser then selects the advertisement that matches the respective cohort. 

From April, the changed tracking method will be put into practice when Google releases a new version of its Chrome browser, which is now by far the most widely used web browser in the world. 

**The rules of the game and targeting will change. Interest-based advertising will continue to lead to relevant advertisements being displayed to users in the future. The privacy of users should be better protected. Google itself says in its blog that at least 95 percent of the conversions per dollar spent will continue to be achieved in the future compared to cookie-based advertising.**

The cookie tracking used so far has had its day, a new tracking method is to take its place instead. 

Grafik grüne inkognito Männchen in Kohorten

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The future: group instead of personalized advertising - moving away from cookie tracking 

**Challenges need solutions. With COVID-19, the world is currently dealing with one of the greatest challenges of our time. We would like to show opportunities how something positive can also emerge from Corona and how you can quickly develop and implement digitization strategies that can lead to better work and project quality in the long term. **

## Suddenly digital?
The corona pandemic has been keeping the world in suspense since March 2020. The economy in Germany and the whole world was hit equally hard from now on. Economic activities have been shut down as far as possible, contacts have been and will continue to be avoided and people are shifting many activities to the Internet. Both appointments to eat and customer meetings as well as consumer behavior are carried out from the laptop at home. From now on, orders will be delivered contactless (if possible). Schools were closed and face-to-face teaching became homeschooling, distance learning or "teaching in shifts" in a long-lasting process. In numerous companies, employees were sent straight home from the offices in order to work from home from now on.
What does this mean for companies, sectors, schools, etc.? Processes that have grown historically in most industries and in the public sector are being turned upside down or frozen outright. New "digital" processes are needed from now on. Presence, traceability and one's own reputation on the Internet are more important than ever, the delivery of goods and the supply chains behind them are taking center stage instead of personal discussions on site. Employees working from home have to organize themselves more and find a new way of working together.

### To accept the challenge
In many companies and industries in Germany, digitization has been repeatedly pushed into the future due to complexity and costs. And that is not entirely unfounded, because digitization usually involves major organizational and technical challenges at the beginning. However, there is no alternative to digitization in a networked world and the pandemic is once again pointing the finger at the wound that things have to start immediately.

## Solution approaches: First big steps on the digital path
The Corona Pandemic shows how (in)flexible some sectors and companies are at the moment and reveals the weak points. This is the start that may have been needed many times in order to tackle the topic of digitization and to look at it holistically. Nevertheless, it will not be expedient to "overthrow" and restart all processes immediately. There are too many dependencies for that and there are also good reasons why processes exist as they have in the past.
From this point of view, we recommend thinking in smaller steps and taking on individual business processes in a targeted manner and digitizing them step by step. The changes have a moderate impact and the employees are gradually introduced to the new processes. Because it is also very important to emphasize that digitization of processes does not mean releasing employees, only the type of activity that the employee spends will change. **Model business processes**
The first priority is the analysis of the respective business processes, i.e. drawing a rough picture of the company processes. In an agile context, individual business processes are then specifically removed and modeled. With this minimally invasive approach, a business process can be designed that functions as independently as possible from other processes. New systems and working methods are tried out on the basis of adapted processes and quickly provide insights into how well this type of adaptation works.
However, adapting business processes can also mean breaking down departmental silos. For example, the business process is reorganized at the interface between marketing and sales. If the marketing department was previously only responsible for generating new leads, real added value will be created if they are also involved in the further customer lead process in the future. If the marketing department receives feedback in the future as to when the sales department will talk to the customer on which topics, marketing can use future marketing campaigns in a more targeted manner and invest the budget in such a way that not only measures lead to more leads but also to longer-term and thus higher sales. Conversely, based on your experience, marketing can provide sales with precise information about which phase of the decision-making process the customer is currently in and when is the ideal time for a customer meeting.
Only then will further business processes be adapted in a targeted manner - based on the newly gained knowledge. These small steps allow employees to learn in a targeted manner and to train and get used to the partly new working methods, technology and tools so that regular business operations can continue.

**Creating values**
Which processes should be adjusted first, and which processes should be digitized to bring the greatest added value? It is not enough to just consider the costs and complexity - the added value of processes must also be included in digitization considerations. Added values can be viewed very differently, for example the additional digital reach, a higher package penetration or the reduction in the abandonment rate on the website through better visitor guidance.
**Agile approach**
Agile means continuous transparency in the procedure and increased flexibility in order to be able to react to project and environmental influences. Finished products are delivered (or processes are adapted) at short intervals so that they can be tried out and learned directly in practice. Any errors are discovered earlier (earlier) and influence further product and process development.
A complete adjustment or change of all business processes overwhelms companies and employees alike, because the complexity is too great and hinders (or hinders) the previously functioning operations. Concentrating on sub-business processes makes it possible to make the changes more manageable and feasible for everyone, acceptance by employees increases significantly, they learn new ways of working and new (technical) systems. Findings are used to plan the next steps of digitization based on the needs of the company and employees, instead of designing processes on paper from the outset, which may not be practical enough. Agile does not mean haphazard - but an iterative approach adapted to needs with a constant learning curve that delivers continuous results.

**Time **
Digitization, which has not been addressed sufficiently or not up to now, will not be caught up in 3 months. Changes take time, since new business processes first have to be established and perhaps also have to be justified. But through targeted adaptation and digitization of the respective processes, agile working achieves milestones without losing sight of the holistic view. For example, if the analogue fax reports to the health authorities are digitized by sending and receiving them digitally, process steps such as printing out, viewing documents and scanning them again are no longer necessary. The employees have significantly more time to take care of other activities such as contact tracing.

**Customers and Employees**
Your target group is larger than you think. Digitization will change the way employees work and the (shopping) behavior of customers. Take all target groups with you on the journey by actively informing the customer about new processes. Support the employees by involving them in decisions and the redesign of processes at an early stage and letting them help shape them. In addition to increasing acceptance, this also increases long-term success and increases the quality of work and projects in the long term.

**A mature digital strategy certainly cannot be developed overnight. Of course, you need the means, the time, but also the will to go this route and put your company on a competitive footing. Anyone who sets up their business processes digitally and actively involves their employees and customers in the upcoming changes lays an important foundation for successful digitization. **


What companies can do to seize the opportunity and remain competitive in the long term

Foto Frau mit Kopfhörern und Brille vor einem Laptop

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How the corona pandemic is accelerating digitization

The ever new possibilities for digital networking are changing the way we communicate, live and work together. Products and services support us digitally to share or access information. We can bypass communication and information hurdles much faster and almost at any time of the day and get in touch with each other in a variety of ways.

## Customer Experience: Making customers happy with simple data
Today, companies can use a variety of channels to support consumers with tailored information in their decision-making process. The main task remains: the right customer approach at the level of his needs.

The use of advertising media on the Internet can make sense, but only through product and purchase-related services that offer the consumer relevant added value and are not lost in the flood of e-mails, newsletters, push notifications or display advertising.

Personalized purchase recommendations, on the other hand, increase the potential for attention if they are used carefully. The more the consumer has the feeling of receiving a recommendation that is tailored to him, the greater the acceptance of it and the more he will deal with the offer.

Nowadays it is important to orchestrate all marketing and sales channels in such a way that a uniform brand experience is created along the entire customer journey and all company solutions from marketing, sales and service act together.

## Turn anonymous visitors into loyal customers
The better you know your target group, the more effectively individual offers or interesting advertisements can be displayed. However, in the early attention and consideration phase, this is a major challenge. The visitor doesn't even know the company and it can therefore not access data such as a purchase history.

**How can relevant information be displayed if the customer is unknown?**
Businesses must first find out what customer information they already have. (Partial) information is often already available in a wide variety of systems, such as ERP, CRM or web shops. Combining this disparate data reveals connections that were previously undetected. For example, current visitors behave in a similar way to previous ones. Customer behavior can be predicted (with some inaccuracy).

**But usually the first hurdle behind this merging of information is already there, since IT structures in the company have grown historically.** ## Breaking down data silos in the company
The aim is to combine data from historically grown IT structures with other data in a meaningful way in order to then interpret it from different perspectives. The "breaking up" of data silos must be considered on a technical level and from a business perspective. Data and data sources have different qualities and information content. In this way, one will decide on a case-by-case basis which data sources have the higher relevance and which have priority in the case of duplicate content.

What does this look like in practice with an energy supplier, for example? Energy suppliers define the areas of interest of the target groups according to keywords such as "public transport", "swimming pools", "gas" or "water connection". Additional demographic and geographic information offers the opportunity to further narrow down and provide deeper insights. With the connection to social media channels, comments are filtered out and posts on the topic are analyzed in order to be able to reflect the mood of the authors or to identify cross-selling potential (public transport/swimming pools). Based on such insights, it is possible to display personalized advertising in the social networks.

For this purpose, logics are developed with the help of the aggregated and curated data in order to address customers more specifically and personally. Marketing solutions can support this and take over time-consuming operational activities in an automated and self-learning manner, so that marketing managers can concentrate on the alignment of marketing instruments and channels.


**Furthermore, processes can be set up that allow a forecast for the future on the basis of past and present-related data.**

### Knowing the customer in order to inspire them
As soon as a visitor reaches the company website or web shop, sales and marketing logic should interlock like clockwork. Based on entry pages and behavior, the selection of the displayed products and content can be based on the identified interests and needs of the consumer. Additional real-time geospatial information can further influence and support the appearance and content for the user from the area at the time of the call.

The advice in the web shop, the so-called Guided Selling, can provide much more accurate recommendations based on the consolidated data. The recommendations include the interests and needs of the visitor and have a lasting positive effect on the purchase probability.

Let's assume a consumer is interested in a racing bike but has not yet been able to gain much experience on the subject. As part of guided selling, targeted questions are asked in order to provide the appropriate product recommendations at the end. Based on this information, it will quickly become clear whether the consumer is more interested in a beginner or a professional model and whether he is aware that a racing bike is usually delivered without pedals. The bike can then be largely preconfigured by asking specific questions, so that in the end the customer has a choice between a few – but precisely fitting – alternatives and the beginner doesn’t forget his pedals either. Because they expect to be able to drive off immediately after their purchase and will not think about it during the purchase process.
Transparency and control of personal data as the key to a trustworthy customer relationship
The merging and enrichment of information must be targeted and customer-centric. Companies have a responsibility to make their customers transparent about the data they collect and to provide an overview of the data collected. It must also be possible to revoke the consent at a later date. Compliance with the GDPR is legally binding and is assumed by the consumer.

In the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022435915000263" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">as part of the "Online Privacy Customization" study</a>
Maik Eisenbeiß and Nico Wiegand explored the idea that companies give users full control over their data the first time they visit their website. The customer decides which data he makes available to shops or social media platforms for personalized advertising. A customer-centric option is, for example, the offered configuration of the cookies by the site visitor. A configuration option between required/functional cookies and marketing cookies ensures customer trust in the provider and allows prospective customers to act in a self-determined manner. In the study mentioned above, it turned out that when personal data is requested transparently, the willingness to release this data is even higher than when there is less transparency for the user. The purchase intention usually increases by 10% and the willingness to visit the online shop again even increases by 16 percent.

## After the purchase is before the purchase
The successful sale of a product is not a single action that ends with the receipt of the product. After a purchase, the customer is still in an experience process and the product is in a life cycle. Especially after the purchase, the customer's experience should be further shaped by the company in order to retain him in the long term. This includes after-sales services that start where the customer expects them. Customer-oriented delivery conditions or possible assembly services are sensible. If a defective item needs service, the company can, for example, convince and retain the customer with an uncomplicated returns service.

Just as with the marketing and services before the actual purchase, the basis is that the needs of the customer – and thus relevant customer data – are known and available in a usable form. Only with such data can services be offered as individually and precisely as possible.

Another essential building block in after sales are recommendations for cross-selling products. This is particularly fruitful and exciting if the realities of the customer's life can also be addressed. The racing bike buyer could already be offered suitable pedals when buying the racing bike. Selling additional products in the context of the last purchase is much easier than promoting randomly displayed items.
Relocating processes to the cloud – is that necessary?

**An architecture in the cloud ensures stability, scalability and takes into account the strict security aspects when it comes to storing customer and transaction data.**

To ensure scaling and stability, many manufacturers rely on so-called accelerator solutions, which as standard cover many business cases and business logics in the software core and can be individually adapted or expanded. Such systems already have many standardized interfaces for connecting third-party systems and can be easily updated.

New functionalities and security updates also reduce maintenance costs in the long term and make future migration easier.

If marketing campaigns are designed that produce a high number of visitors, it is possible in the cloud to scale the system in such a way that an increased number of visitors can also be easily managed on the server side.

## Agile culture to cope with
Overall, the challenges for companies are great:

- Break down data silos and bring together a wide variety of data
- Derive recommendations for action from analyzes and determine missing data to be collected
- Recognize and comply with legally compliant data mining as a process
- Provide personalization, relevant customer approach and added value appropriate for channels and customer needs
- Ideally, being able to predict customer behavior (predictive marketing) in order to make offers to customers before they even feel the need themselves

These diverse topics can only be realized step by step. An agile way of working helps to think in smaller projects with a quick return on investment. Large projects are shared to make them manageable. Existing can be expanded iteratively and improved in a targeted manner.

Each project phase focuses on developing deliverable increments with added value for customers and the company. At the same time, questions are asked at an early stage, thereby revealing opportunities and risks that are directly taken into account as the project progresses. Technical debts, which could take revenge later in the project, are also prevented. Potentials are developed and not overlooked.

**Realistic targets, a step-by-step rollout and the associated iterative structure support companies in project planning and implementation.**
However, the agile approach has another major advantage: it promotes thinking in terms of solutions for business use cases. With the customer-centric approach, it is determined early on what will add value at the end of the sub-projects (or sprints). The focus shifts in favor of business priorities.
The right customer experience solution: conclusion

Data competence, digital evolution and optimal shopping experiences often require IT solutions in sales, marketing and service with a long project duration and high costs. You need end-to-end processes and systems to be able to achieve the goals. If the solution is transferred to the productive environment after months or years, customer or market requirements may have changed.

In an agile context, market success and added value are generated more quickly due to the smaller project sizes. The architecture of a selected software solution should be modular and easy to expand.

**At the same time, stakeholders and users are on board right from the start and work directly on the success of the project and the company. With the introduction of new systems, the processes and tasks of the employees also change. With smaller and manageable changes, they are involved early on, help shape the process and are not exposed to steep learning curves. This increases productivity, safety and acceptance among employees and contributes directly to the success of all project plans and ultimately also to a large extent to customer satisfaction.**



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Blog

live and dev

communicode Author

Stefanie Parthen

Articles to the keywords

Article

Frustration-free shopping - learn from your customers' greatest moments of frustration

The future: group instead of personalized advertising - moving away from cookie tracking

How the corona pandemic is accelerating digitization

Customer Experience: What the customer wants, he should get