The hidden salesmen in a website

Rajeev Sharma, vice president and head – digital, RMG Connect
If I were to do an ultra-slow motion of a consumer walking in a showroom (a physical showroom) with all the salesmen slowly taking their positions, pre-empting the consumer’s steps, movement, body language, eye contact, gestures and creating a formation, I would imagine it all to be happening without much effort. And I would also imagine these (sales) people to learn (over time) how to act in such varied situations, scenarios and refine their movements getting their ‘acts’ polished to finally make the consumer’s journey as valuable as possible.

Recently, I was at a posh saree showroom and my wife was busy getting draped in different colours and fabrics with several mirrors describing her elegance. Apart from several other such consumers, on the other corner was another graceful woman surrounded by three sales people making her comfortable in almost the same way.

Each of these two consumers was different, with a unique purchase behaviour, mindset and expectations. The response or the comfort they were expecting – apart from being made special – was individual and pretty unique. And moreover from these salesmen’s point of view all of that had to be real quick, intuitive, behaviourally well targeted and highly pre-emptive. And trust me, so it was. (Though what happened at the end of that threateningly long and non-ending incident is another matter and a discussion for later.)

Now switch to an online retail environment (for instance a shopping website, selling similar items or even low priced ones) where not one or two but hundreds of users (prospective consumers) are coming with several different reasons (of visit) and specific needs and expectations. From looking at the tiniest of details on their attitude and behaviour to their expectations, this shopping website is expected to do all of that -- exactly what those intelligent salesmen did -- to understand those (prospective) consumers, to give them personalised service, to make them feel special... and most importantly to meet their expectations, again and again.

Be it offline or online it’s no real different. The same consumer (perhaps behaving a little differently), the same ‘salesmen’, their same preemptiveness, quickness, intuitiveness and behaviourally targeted highly specific and individualised response. It’s all personalised so each consumer's expectations are met. With several different consumers (in hundreds of thousands sometimes), I have heard this aspect of personalisation being called – the era of mass customisation and micro addressability.

Let’s visually visit the shopping site we have been talking about once, practically. You just stepped into the home page of your favourite online shopping mall and with the click of a mouse you see a flurry of banners, messages -- top sellers here, top sellers there, what others bought, what we think you should buy, and what’s on and what’s not...

With each step (click) you are given interesting information based on some previous interest you showed. You move forward searching, sorting, clicking, reading, comparing and as the journey inches forward, somewhere (behind the scenes) in the background, the creators of that shopping site, and those salesmen are doing their job. They are placing you (segmenting you) as a user of a particular type, belonging to a particular mindset, representing a particular persona, having used a particular page as a key navigation page or just as a bridge (for deeper analytics).

Whether you came for the first time or second, whether you were a general surfer or a loyal consumer (consumer loyalty), every little aspect is being quietly logged in somewhere. Each piece of information, preference and interest are being carefully gathered and like those sales people in the showroom, the website’s links are closing in on you, to make the journey as valuable to you as they can.

Such websites are great instances where site analytics, user behaviour, usability (man machine interaction), relationship building, consumer and brand engagement all meet and are in full play. It is a measurement metric with cross linkages and cross patterns -- all of which draw inferences from understanding consumer behaviour and meeting their expectations.

So, next time when you get into understanding your user behaviour and analytics apply your usual offline experiences to see how an online behaviour is shaped and needs to be mined (for that particular product).

And be firm. Ask your digital agency to think sample consumer journeys (called work flows) beforehand, tell them to think about usability and to work hard before even starting to create the website’s information design (information architecture) and set expectations for each step of the user journey (navigational flow).

It’s this science that will make all the difference. Now, to get a live exercise, visit a shopping website or walk to a mall store. Watch these sales people taking their positions.