Educating The Customer – Leading To Better Sales

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Educating The Customer – Leading To Better
Sales
At the recently concluded eTailing India Expo 2017 – “India’s Flagship Conference &
Exhibition on Retail, eCommerce and Mobile”, leading thought leaders shared their perspective
on “Technology Services for Retail &eCommerce”. This article summarizes the session for
Educating the Customer- Leading to Better Sales. (The session is not verbatim here)
In the last 5 years, three things have changed:
1. People used to create brand through a process, through awareness, product proposition
and then may be getting loyalty but now things are fast.
2. Products are becoming very complex where today products are a combination of product
and service. So it becomes difficult whether you educate about the product or the service.
3. The span of consumer attention is going down significantly lower. Due to abundance of
information available in various platform, people are jumping from one place to another
place and people can read things on the go etc. Those are the opportunities as well as the
challenges by all the marketers.
Why educating the customer is so important for business?
Not only the product but also the consumer buying behavior has become complex today. It is no
longer an impulse buying. Today, all of us want to do a bit of research before buying to
determine the best option. There is a lot of word of mouth that happens through blogs, social

media and other various channels. In this scenario, how do you stand-out as a product, as a
service or as a business?
There is no denying the fact, for every product exist hundreds of different types today. So, in
order to stand-out, you have to be omnipresent in the consumer space. You need to understand
customer very well and then accordingly package your communication to the customer.
Content today has become fiercely competitive in the market with an extremely complex
consumer mindset. Content today is king because if you don’t reach out to the consumers, you do
not communicate the benefits for the particular product, you will stay behind in the race.
Product and challenges faced in an adult product site
We are an online adult shop because people are uncomfortable buying sex-oriented products at
retail. There is a whole bunch of new products in the country from abroad that has not been seen
and that is a huge challenge for us because people normally use condom as products when they
used to buy. Education plays a vital role in trying to convert a customer into an actual purchaser.
So for us, it is of paramount importance.
What are the challenges faced by Wellness Foreverwhen it moved from offline to online?
We were traditionally into brick-and mortar and then into e-commerce space. The best part is
that we have constant contact with the customer as we are the last mile. One thing i have
experienced in the last two years that customers have become extremely curious when they come
at counters. You need to have someone to give relevant information to convert that into a sale
and also into a monthly recurring purchase.
You have a different challenge where you have to not only educate the customers but also
educate the corporates to get the resources. What are the challenges in the space?
There is a huge demand for women to work from home who are actually educated but couldn’t
work after a maternity break. My customers are not just the women but also there are business
partners, making sure to provide business opportunities to the women. My education happens at
both the end where i have to educate the business alliances about the need of the hour, areas of
focus and cost efficiency andeven for the time frame it works. It works out as a win-win situation
for businesses and the women on board. So, that is the balance we are trying to strike.
What are the challenges in the B2B space?
I am fortunate to have both the perspective of B2B and B2C space. There has been a paradigm
shift on education. Earlier what were campaigns is now customer education.
How do you figure out your customer? How do you identify the place where you can find
the customer to approach?

The key to success for any business is in knowing your customer really well. If you don’t know
the psychology, demographics of customer, how are you going to package your product/brand
and put it across to the customer?
Now once you know about your customer, you need to know where these customers are
spending more time. Where is my customers’ footfall the highest and in this digital world, where
their eyeballs stick to most of the time? For instance, my space includes expecting parents or
parents of small kids. Where do they spend most of their digital time? We can get them on blogs,
social media sites. We collect data from those specific pages and try to understand what clicks
our customers.Depending upon your knowing of customer, you can formulate strategies.
What i have seen work for Wellness is we started bringing a lot of contentand information heavy
forums. Once such forum announces special events, this is something effect the masses that is
everyone.
What we saw is without putting any money on Facebook or Google, the hits went up
geometrically, but the impact on the topline was huge.
So you need to focus on building something that will influence the customer which is content
heavy, information heavy and customers will come. That’s themoment; you can make your sale
because you have been so consistent with your information.
We approached women from Facebook groups who wanted to work from women and were
successful without spending any money on Facebook.
How difficult approaching customer without knowing is in the adult product space?
One is a content strategy and the second part is integrating that with marketing and sales. First
understand what value educating the customer will give the organization.
Secondly, understand the audience. What, who, where is my audience? What am I educating the
customer about?
Third, what is the type, format of the content? Is it available on the web? Is it a video, blogetc?
If you look at the mistakes most people do, customeris created in the product development stage.
It is not. It is created when the client starts using it. Customer education happens 24/7 across
channels because customers shop 24/7. Also, influencer marketing works without spending
money on social platforms.
How do you balance continuously educating customers and at the same time drive sales
with limited resources?
Think of any company as a coin. At one side, they tell you why you should buy. On the other
hand, there is just one ear. That’s the side which customer lies, when you listen. So the frame is

pretty simple. All you need to do is understand the touch-points that your brand has with each of
the customers. Every single touch-point is a sales opportunity.
At the end of the day, people buy brand and the brand equity that it carries makes them
purchase. So your communication should be ubiquitous, should be omni-channel. When you are
launching a product, make sure you have an eye on each and every single touch-point.
In terms of educating the customer and eventually leading to sales, we keep having free
seminars. Finally, at the end of the customer education, we convert around 10% of it into sales.
Is there a way by which ecommerce companies and startups can use their existing set of
customer to really educate the rest of the customers?
In adult product space, it is sort of challenge for customer to refer someone. People think on
terms of credibility and trust factor. We give free gift every time customers buy a product. When
these customers go back, we ask them to write a feedback which works for repeat as well as
referral customers.
Should the focus be on content or should it be on where to catch your consumers and on
which channels to catch them?
Quality content by default should be given. You need to find those communicators who already
have a fan following. These are your brand ambassadors when it comes to content world. You
don’t need to bother where you will find customer. These guys will do it for you.
Q&A
How do you define a brand?
The new definition of brand is the moments of truth, the experience or story that a person can
rate with you. A brand today is the experience that you give to your customers. Brands that are
successful in giving true experience in omni-channel are the brands people are buying.
What do you think is the importance of logo?
You correlate your experience with that logo. Logo and all are vehicles to create an impression
on the customer.
This week, Flipkart reportedly raised $1 billion in the recent fundraising round at a $10 billion
valuation, lower than $15.5 billion in 2015.
#Digitalerra Thought Corner
With the much needed fund in the bag, Flipkart is most likely to put efforts on improving
customer service and retention of customers to stay ahead of Amazon.

“One of the biggest setbacks that the Indian e-commerce companies have faced over the years is
the customer service. The e-commerce companies have to focus on user experience across
platforms as well as improving the customer service. If you look at Amazon, they are expanding
into multiple areas, but each area they are in; they are very strong in terms of service and
experience, ”Ashish Jhalani, eTailing India founder, told BGR India.
What these etailers are doing to improve customer service and experience?
According to Forrester’s India Customer Experience Index 2016 report, Amazon and Big Basket
were the top brands in the ‘digital-only retailers’ category while Myntra-owned Jabong made the
biggest improvement in customer service in this category. “It (Jabong) made great strides in
2016 by meeting customers’ expectations and making them feel more positive about their
interactions with the retailer,” the report said.
With no profits to show along with increasingly impatient investors, online retailers have now
begun to publicly claim to focus on delivering a differentiated Customer experience. Both
Amazon and Flipkart have been exploring various methods to attract new customers and keep its
existing ones happy.
In July, Amazon introduced its membership programme Amazon Prime, in India to enable users
to get products delivered within a day or two. Upping the ante, Flipkart soon launched Flipkart
Assured, a programme that customers can use to avail themselves of free delivery within two to
four days for products that cost more than Rs 500.
Later, in what could give a huge boost to Amazon India’s efforts to gain dominance, the US-
based e-tailer launched its ‘Global Store’ in India last month that will give domestic customers
direct access to over 4 million global products.
With the launch of Global Store, Amazon.in has become the single-largest online destination for
buying both local and global products in India, it claimed.
Amazon.in wants to be a platform that offers a complete 360 degree solution to customers’
needs. “We want customers to be able to find, discover and buy anything online and any seller to
sell anything online that is compliant and legal. If a washing machine breaks down and you are
missing a part, you should be able to find it on Amazon and if you want to replace the whole
washing machine, you should find that as well,” Amazon India Head, Amit Agarwal said. “We
are not a part store or washing machine store but we are the biggest selection.”
Meanwhile, Flipkart is planning to launch physical stores in smaller cities to attract more
customers. Under its new project that it internally calls ‘assisted commerce’, Flipkart wants to
cement its position as the preferred online retailer even in the remote cities of the country
through planned brick-and-mortar stores, to reach out maximum customers.
Flipkart has over the years taken rapid strides in delivering a seamless online shopping
experience through India-specific innovations such as cash on delivery, easy returns, same day
delivery and instant refunds, that have paved the way for the e-commerce market in India. These

innovations have resonated well among customers in India, who are highly sensitive to changes,
setting an industry benchmark.
Customer Service- To Serve Customers Better
Over the years, e-commerce players have evolved in the process of providing customer service
with ingenuity driven strategies. Some of them are:
 Having a coherent, systematic content strategy
Content put on the website as well as the brick and mortar has to be streamlined with other
metrics. You put out customer feedback on blogs, social media platforms to help discuss and
resolve customer queries.
Your customers are buying your products because they want it to help them do something. You
want to talk about that. You want to help to clarify the desire that they already have.When they
associate that with you and your brand, they’re that much likelier to decide to buy your products.
This is just a facet of maintaining a relation with your customer.
 Packaging products
Whenever someone buys from marketplaces, he or she expects it to get the product exactly as it
is displayed on the screen and in good condition. Proper packaging is proper safety otherwise it
will be tampered. Taking care of packaging also is one way of brand promotion. You can judge
the name of the brand with the color of packaging. We can also say this is one way of indirect
branding with the help of packaging. Moreover, returns from the customer side will be less if the
packaging is used the right way.
Same goes with the logistics where you not only provide timely, efficient deliveries but also give
tracking information to customers during the entire journey.
 Data to understand customers
Etailers have started collecting NPS to improve the customer experience.They are preparing
videos trying to explain the score of services. These are expectations of the consumers that you
need to provide. With data, from a binary view, you are suddenly having accurate results of
consumer behavior.
“Everyone at Flipkart now has net promoter score (NPS), and customer satisfaction as their most
important metrics. E-commerce is a business where you’re selling products every day. So you
need the execution rigor to make sure that every day, we are providing the best customer
experience,” said BinnyBansal of Flipkart.
 Post-purchase engagement with customers

Your relationship with your customers doesn’t end after they hand you their cash and you deliver
them your product.Happy customers are incredibly valuable – they’re the source of your most
important word-of-mouth. Etailers make sure to further personalize relation with customers.
 Providing stellar support when things break or go wrong
A customer with a broken or spoilt product or some other unhappy scenario is going to be more
emotional than a customer that’s happy or shopping around. Firms are striving to provide a fix at
the earliest ensuring reliability on getting service.
In the end, here are six ways that small ecommerce businesses can provide awesome
customer service for their customers:
 Offer multichannel support: 9 out of 10 customers expect to receive a consistent
experience over multiple channels.
 Listen on social media: 78% of customers believe that social media will be the next tier
of customer service.
 Create a support center for customers: 90% of customers go to a company’s website
before calling or emailing you.
 Provide online chat: 77% of customers agreed that online chat positively influenced their
attitude about the retailer.
 Focus on timely responses: 84% of customers that reported being either likely or very
likely to do business with a company if it responded via phone in less than a minute.
 Deliver a WOW experience like WOW support team does on a daily basis for the
customers.
Speakers:SiddharthaPahwa (MeruCabs),AnandRBanerjee (Franchise &BusinessNow (India)
Limited),AmitThapliyal (Vinculum),SamirSariya(Thatspersonal.com),TabishSangrar(Wellness
ForeverMedicare Private Limited) andNehaShah(QWEEN)

Educating The Customer – Leading To Better Sales

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