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Achieving excellence in online customer experience design What can you learn from luxury & high end brand web sites?

Dean Wood from Clear Choice Usability (www.ccusability.com) conducted an independent customer experience benchmark of several international luxury / marque brand sites, including Audi, Bang & Olufsen, BMW / Mini, Chanel, Credit Suisse, Lexus, Mercedes, Mini, Mont Blanc, Pictet (Swiss private bank), Porsche, Rolex & Westin hotels. The Luxury Institute in New York has found that nearly all wealthy consumers (99 percent) use the Internet to research before they buy; two-thirds conduct online research frequently. "The Internet is the channel the wealthy prefer when buying several categories of goods and services," said Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury institute. Ironically, the only remaining obstacle preventing wealthy consumers from purchasing a multitude of luxury products and services on the Internet appears to be the lack of customer-centricity of some luxury firms." Ross Honeywill & Verity Byth also profile a customer segment they call NEOs (individuals exhibiting 194 robust attitudinal, behavioural spending characteristics). They suggest these individuals have a high propensity to spend on luxury items and that good design and online product research are instrumental to their purchasing behaviour. They suggest that there are 59 million wealthy NEO consumers in the US, 12 million in the UK and 4 million in Australia. Clear Choice Usability set out to understand:

• When and how people use the web sites of high end brand companies?

• What are best practices and customer insights in customer experience design to foster sales, efficiency and loyalty?

• What sites are used by wealthier individuals?

• What trends in customer experience design are emerging among high end brands that can guide strategic thinking among executives who seek sales to wealthier customers?

The study involved in depth interviews with over 30 luxury brand customers in Australia, China, Denmark, Japan, Switzerland, United States and Singapore. Participants were generally involved in one-on-one for 1-1.5 hours about their current / recent research and buying behaviour, followed by users visiting and evaluating 3 high end web sites per participant. Key findings The research found that several customers:

• Failed to find products they would want to buy when the products were in the sites. One potential Mercedes Benz customer would have left the site without finding out about a model that would have met his needs. Several visitors to the Bang & Olufsen felt the site was beautiful but would have left without finding products they sought. Some had recently looked for products and concluded that the products were not available (e.g. earphones).

• Felt the sites did not put links in places to guide them to related content or towards their local showroom (almost all wanted to experience the product before buying it, except for customers looking to buy products from one of the sites).

• Felt companies did not have local dealerships when they did (e.g. Mini in some regions).

• Struggled with search and other functionality to get to specific products.

• Report that sites do not support the purchasing processes of wealthy people (who want to buy expensive products in the immediate future) and less wealthy people (who often want to buy a less expensive product to start engaging with the brand). BMW, Mercedes and Rolex were among the most consistently frustrating and underwhelming sites.

• That several sites deliver very appealing visual designs but are not delivering on the other aspects of good customer experience design such as navigation and clear labelling.

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• Sites such as Rolex focus too much on imagery and the navigation makes it hard for customers to find what they want.

• Customers at Chanel often liked the look and general navigation but still failed to find information they sought.

• Only two or three of the 13 sites are delivering excellence in terms of information design and interaction design, representing significant scope for companies to take the lead.

• Porsche is amongst the top sites, but still led some users to make navigation errors to feel frustrated. Insights were gained into ways the site could better support the sales process.

• Navigation and visual design approaches in some of the sites worked well internationally. These design approaches will help companies gain competitive advantage.

The business implications of the customer experiences observed in this research:

• Is likely to lead to fewer product sales than could be achieved.

• Approximately ¼ of the users involved in this study would have left at least one of the sites without finding products they wanted, even though there were products in the sites that met their requirements. The customers just could not find them. This represents significant potential for lost sales.

• At least ½ the users would have been very likely to have failed to notice or struggled to find their local showroom. Few of the sites support repeat visitors, though most users reported visiting luxury sites several times before making their purchase.

• Few of the sites provide functions that customers found to communicate or save the information. Making high end purchases is often a joint decision among several people, or that is made by people who travel a lot. The sites need to provide functions to support these needs, or the designs need to change to make these functions more obvious if sales are to be maximised.

Some key insights: 1. How people use the web

• Some people might say that the web has no or minimal influence on people’s buying decisions. This research found, however, that the web plays a role for many customers in shaping their thinking, fuelling desire, maintaining loyalty and helping lure customers. Many customers will know what they want but the web can help trigger a buying decision, facilitate discussions that lead to purchases, help customers engage in the buying process and move brands into / out of the customer’s buying shortlist.

• An interview with one customer illustrates the web’s role in product research & buying behaviour was that one person involved in this research had been thinking about looking into buying a 4WD. He was a Vice President of an oil company who travelled frequently, His daughter wanted him to buy a Mercedes but he had not got around to looking for it. When he went to that company’s web site he wanted to find a 4WD that could seat 7 people. He spent 20 minutes browsing & searching the site but could not find out which model would meet his needs and would have left the site and not made further enquiries to Mercedes. Before he left, he was guided to a custom search, where he quickly found the car models that would meet his needs. He quickly requested that brochures be delivered to his house for the models of interest in, which he would have discussed with his family, generating a lead and good will for Mercedes. Without the guidance to the appropriate function, Mercedes would have lost this lead. The site design needs to be more customer-centric if it is to maximise leads and sales.

• Even though wealthy individuals are unable to buy very expensive products online (such as cars, stereos etc), the web is playing an increasingly important role in product research. Wealthier individuals often reported having less time to spend out at showrooms, so the web helped them find products they were interested in and enable them to go into the showroom with specific questions being better prepared.

• Web sites had the greatest influence among customers who are open to different brands, who can be engaged to bring their purchasing decision forward or who actively encourage their friends to buy similar products.

• The web sites of some companies were so good they led potential customers to be in a position where they had found a suitable model and knew all the details to visit their dealer’s showroom, where that company was barely a candidate before the user visited

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the web site. These sites will achieve greatest sales from advertisements that include a web address.

• ETC 2. Current international best practices

• Described in the full research report.

Insights into customer experience at www.porsche.com This review is a sample out of the 12 sites that are evaluated in the customer experience benchmark report. For more information about the review. The results reported here are based on usability testing with several users who visited the web site. Notes were recorded about their experiences and impressions.

Finding the site

• People effectively found the Porsche site using Google, Yahoo and guessing the web site address. This achievement was not shared by all the high end brand web sites.

Visual design (aesthetics, imagery / video and layout)

• The site was generally perceived as making products very appealing through the use of high quality images. Only the images on the home page were seen to be somewhat uninspiring. Potential customers liked the rest of the site.

Figure 1. Customers found the www.porsche.com home page to be a bit boring but found the rest of the site to be very attractive and visually engaging.

• Customers generally liked the use of grey and black on high end sites, suggesting these to be classic and subtle colours.

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Figure 2. Almost all the pages in the Porsche site were perceived as delivering high quality visual design that helped foster customer’s desire for the products.

Figure 3. The Porsche global home page provides a good launching point for customers to locate their local site (See internationalisation).

• The Porsche site also provides extensive audio-video for users who want a richer experience and who have a high end video connection (not always the case for business travellers).

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Figure 4. The Porsche site is amongst the best in terms of rich, engaging media. The site also helps deliver high and low bandwidth options which can be suited to business travellers on slow connections.

• Customers generally reported the layout to be one of the best amongst the high end brand sites. Whilst the layout could be improved, it is among the best of the sites.

Information design

• Categories at the Porsche site were quite clear to customers. Any potential confusion was overcome through the fly-out menus which illustrated some of the differences between models (see interaction design).

Figure 5. Page showing use of fly-out menus to help customers get to and see products.

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Figure 6. Users can move their cursor between products to see make quick comparisons and find which one best suits their needs.

• Content at the Porsche site is quite well formatted for the web.

• Many wealthy users of the web are busy and want detailed product specifications formatted in a clear, concise manner.

Interaction design (Navigation, functionality & workflow to lead to sales)

• All users who visited the Porsche web site liked the menus to see and choose products. The Porsche site was amongst the top 3 sites in terms of overall interaction design that guides customers to suitable products.

• The Porsche site provides a very good wizard style approach to guide customers towards the general model and specific options that will meet their needs. The Porsche site is among the top two sites of the sites evaluated in this research.

Figure 7. The model and option wizard was generally very good but ambiguous labels and navigation led to confusion and errors that could result in fewer sales.

• The model customisation wizard presents some functions that confused users, including ambiguous product option labels and navigation options that led customers

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to click options that took them to unintended places. The marketing label put some customers off the product and made them feel more likely to rule out options because they felt the site was trying to sell them options without showing a benefit of the options. The navigation difficulties could lead users to miss options, be resistant to options or exit the wizard without completing it, potentially leading to a lost sale.

• Links to related sections and dealerships are not always placed where customers where customers expect to see them, leading several potential customers to miss these links even though they wanted them. Customers had to hunt around to find where to go next, commenting that the links could be located more effectively to help them move through pages. Customers commented that they site could be made more user friendly in this regard. Most sites included in this research did not guide customers between products, or towards a sale.

• Customers also felt that links to showrooms and dealerships were not positioned on pages to guide customers to their local dealership. There is significant potential that this could lead to some sales.

• Whilst the sites are generally delivering high quality visual design, the weaknesses in guiding customers towards sales and showrooms is likely to be the next area of focus in customer experience design of high end sites.

• The Porsche site is also weaker than some sites in provision of functions for users to communicate or save the information. The current site design has led some current customers to leave the site without registering or saving information. Some basic changes could significantly increase the number of customers who communicate and / or save the information.

Figure 8. Forcing customers to register with an email and password led to at least one customer to refuse to sign up. This is a lost sales lead.

• Purchasing expensive products is often a social decision, heavily influenced by the buyer’s family and friends. It was interesting to hear how one interviewee (a Porsche 911 driver) had influenced at least two friends to buy Porsches, with the customisation tool at the Porsche site playing a role. Porsche and other companies could include design elements that will help support the army of unknown sales people they have in current customers to help foster sales. These people are already helping generate sales leads but web sites could do more fuel sales even further in the future.

• Potential customers liked product comparison tools. The Porsche web site is not as good as some other sites in terms of comparing specific product features, though customers struggled to find the product comparison tools at several of the sites.

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Internationalisation

• The Porsche site provides a good global gateway (.com launching point to local content).

• However, the site is presented solely in English. In this respect the Porsche web site is inferior to other sites included in this evaluation, which present more language options and visual navigation to local content.

Figure 9. The Porsche global home page (global gateway) provides good, clear navigation to local country sites, though all the options are in English characters.

• Content in the Porsche web site was effectively localised in language and currencies.

• Local language, easily located dealerships and prices all help customers engage with the brand. Several customers failed to find products at some leading sites such as BMW / Mini because they could not find their local language. They often left with an impression that Mini had no local distribution network and did not care about their market.

• Porsche was generally perceived as having a good local presence, though non-English speakers could struggle with the Porsche home page because it is solely in English. Other luxury sites provide a better global gateway, which will help them reach the growing number of high net worth individuals outside English speaking countries.

Where to from here? • A full report on the research findings & customer experience design recommendations are

available from Dean Wood at dean@ccusability.com or on +61 414 524 978.

• The report contains a descriptions and screenshots of best practices from across the 12 sites reviewed in this research, along with many practical recommendations for achieving best practice in customer experience design.

• Customer reports can be prepared for companies to provide them with a detailed assessment of their web site and customer experience design, including recommendations for improvement.