Don’t cut corners:  As an experienced and successful retailer, you know that done properly retail is hard work.  You can’t simply perch on a stool at the front door and take your customer’s money on her way out.  Rather, your team and you must work overtime to be sure that the shelves are well-stocked with the merchandise your customer needs and wants; prices displayed with the merchandise are visible and accurate; shopping baskets are conveniently at hand; aisles are open and passable; your cash register and electronic payment terminal are functioning correctly; commitments to your customer concerning special orders are fully achieved; and much, much more.

In the same ways for the same reasons, to productively manage your webstore, you must be prepared to work overtime on it as well.  To ensure the merchandise on display is in stock and available for sale, and prices are complete and accurate – by integrating your webstore inventory database with your inventory management system.  To ensure accessing and using the webstore shopping cart is simple and convenient – by user testing and by reviewing webstore server logs to determine shopping cart usage patterns.

To ensure all webstore page links and other navigational directives are linking correctly - by user testing, reviewing linkage test reports as well as reviewing server logs.  To ensure webstore payment processing is functioning quickly and correctly – again by testing and reviewing server logs.  You wouldn’t let dead bugs in the show window blemish the image of your real-world store.  Don’t let software bugs tarnish the image and performance of your webstore either.

Full-contact touch points:  As an integrated retailer, you touch your customer and your customer touches your company across multiple points of contact.  She expects to be recognized, greeted and served in a consistent and positive manner at each and every point of contact.  Whether she is visiting you online at your webstore or by e-mail, by telephone, by regular post or in your real-world store, each visit should connect as necessary and contribute as appropriate to your customer’s relationship history with your company.

"Connect as necessary" and "contribute as appropriate" are the critical components of providing your customer with useful contact.  Information about your customer captured at your customer touch points should be used to serve her needs, not yours.  This is not the place to be gathering marketing profile information.  The relationship of confidence and trust that you work hard to create with your customer can fracture in an instant if she feels compromised or spied upon.

There are a multitude of customer relationship management software products from which to choose, if your current customer account system is inadequate.  But, first, consider the potential of using your current system to capture the necessary customer relationship information – customer name, contact information, account history, previous service experiences - and to deliver the information to all points of contact on a real-time basis.  If you elect to deploy a customer relationship management system, remember that the successful CRM system is one guided by the customer, giving the retailer the information necessary to best serve the customer as she wants to be served.

After-sale support:  Your efforts to provide full-contact customer touch points will be of particular value when your customer needs after-sale support.  Your customer needs to be able to contact your company however she chooses – by e-mail, by phone or by coming to your store – and receive the same level of service whatever the point of contact.  Your customer’s continuing satisfaction with your company is greatly influenced by your team’s performance when things aren’t quite right and when additional service is required.

In my experience, the single most important factor in superior after-sale support, and one of the most valuable competitive advantages an Internet-integrated retailer has over an Internet-only e-tailer, is the retailer’s willingness to meet the customer’s needs either online or in-store.  Your company is missing a huge opportunity if you do not let your customer follow up her transaction in either your real-world store or your webstore, as she chooses.

Next time, I will look at transaction processing, the bridge that ties together your customer’s experience on the "sales floor" of your webstore with her experience with the "back office" of your webstore when completing her purchase.

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