Jason teaches us how to craft end to end customer experiences online by dragging brands kicking and screaming into a New Retail future.
Listen on Apple.
In this episode we discuss:
[0:26:50] Jason Greenward: Yeah, well, I mean, I think you made the point early on that you wanna you wanna create an emotional connection. You wanna you wanna prompt an emotional response throughout every step off. You know, the what? I wouldn't call it the buying journey. I actually call it the brand journey. And so your brand is not what you say it is. It's It's what brand your brand is what people perceive it to be. Because perception is reality for that individual for that unique individuals. So if I you know, because I'm a I'm a reasonably demanding, you know, customer. Andi, I had a I had a shock. I'm actually gonna make my own podcast episode specifically around, All right? It was bad, but I But I had a had a scenario where and this is unfortunately chronic in the mentioned that I'm really into my motor sport, and I'm into motorbikes and lots of other things. But I'm currently working on a motorbike, and and I wanted to get some parts online for my local, um, dealer that in theory should have the parts you can't buy on their website s. So I rang them up. I rang the parts department. I said, you know, do you have this part in stock, you know? No, we don't. Well, when will you have it? It would be 4 to 6 weeks if you order it today. Oh, well, can you give me the Can you give me the part number then and I'll just see if anybody else and it was It was not an expensive part. It was a very cheap apart. So it wasn't like I wasn't asking about $1000 part we're talking. It was less than $100 and they didn't want to give me that part because they didn't want me to go shop somewhere else. But yet they couldn't fulfill my need today and they couldn't fulfill it for another, you know, 4 to 6 weeks on dso You know, I'm thinking myself Well, it's easy enough for me to go online. I could go toe Rev Zillah in this case in the United States. They have all the parts list and and all the diagrams online on their website, where I can actually get the part number directly from their online interactive diagram on. I could buy the parts through them through the United States. Now, unfortunately, I was actually able toe goto a hardware store and get a part that would that would work in place of this. But I'm thinking to myself, there's no benefit to you. You've actually harmed your brand far worse because A you couldn't service me online. You treated me like a second class citizen. When I rang your parts department had to wait on hold forever for you to answer my call. Then, when I did get an answer, My call. You don't have the part in stock and it's a 2017 motorcycle. So it's not as if I'm trying to get a part for a 20 year old motorcycle that's that's no longer even made. This is a current model motorcycle. You don't have the parts mainstream part. You can't get it for 4 to 6 weeks because it's x Japan. And yet you're not even gonna help me try to find somewhere else to get it from, because you can't supply me today. Now that, to me, is the antithesis of a good brand experience. I now have a completely sour taste in my mouth where I'll go out of my way to avoid this dealer in the future. On I won't I won't. I won't turn to them first, and I probably won't even turn to them last in the future because of the shockingly bad brand experience that I had And you know, unfortunately for the poor guy working in the parts department, I don't blame him, he said. It's just our policy. We were not allowed to give out part numbers over the phone because obviously, then you could go buy it elsewhere easily. And I'm thinking, Well, with the Internet, I still can. So you're actually you're actually only shooting yourself in the foot in this environment, whereas you could look like the good guy and give me information that with another few clicks I can get anyway. But you can look like the good guy and leave a good taste in my mouth instead of a bad taste in my mouth.
[0:30:13] George Reid: Beyond that, that really I like that term, their brand journey, and that was part of your brand journey with them, right? And that particular experience you couldn't buy from them. But they had the opportunity to turn that negative into a positive on. Brands have that all the time, like there are many opportunities where you've had or created a bad experience because off Odds Post, for instance, terrific Lee bad or we're officially terrific. Lee bad. Two years ago, when I first arrived here in Australia, and they got their ass kicked into gear since Amazon arrived. But my point is, there's going to be issues where it could be items liberal, late item doesn't have tracking all these sorts of things. You could turn these into a positive, providing you approach it the right way, and that kind of comes down to a lot of customer service. But again, even even on Amazon, I think it z trickier because of your communication with the customer to turn something into a positive, for instance, Amazon could still deliver something late, particularly what's going on at the moment. It could still be a little bit late, but if you're unboxing experience that we come back to that was awaiting and voting on emotion, then you've managed to create that negative into a positive. We don't mind that it's a day late because it was brilliant when it arrived on, they had a really nice card inside, and we connected with some additional value, which later us even further on that being said, it brings onto another point right now. I remember reading some post of yours recently about adding value and really like some of the points you are making about how we can take the opportunities presented in front of US toe add value to that customer. But some of the brands particular Amazon, I think, fail at this massively. I'm continuously helping people kind of think of new ideas of like You can add value here. Add value here. Do you think brands are very bad at this? Or do you think there's a lack of inspiration? Are you seeing any particularly good examples of brands just throwing in a little bit of value, which could be a guide? It could be an extended warranty. Kind of What? What do your thoughts on that value at peace?
[0:32:25] Jason Greenward: Yeah, Look, I think I think you hit the nail on the head when you were talking about a memorable brand experience, even in a scenario where the initial experience isn't maybe what the customer fully expected, so and even if it's something that's out of your control now, this is a lesson I learned when I was working in hospitality before I ever got into the digital space. This is many of those more than 20 years ago now on. I worked in hospitality and I had a restaurant manager that I was working with a very sort of reasonably upmarket restaurant that I was. I was working as a waiter in this restaurant and and he was a very It was one of the best managers I ever had. And he said, You know, I I used to always get quite frustrated and quite almost angry when you know we would. You know food would take too long from the kitchen or something. You know, steak would come out overcooked or or whatever. Whatever, right? You know, something would go wrong right on down, and the customer would not be 100% happy. As a result, we had a policy is a business that if the server detected that the customer was unhappy in any way and they couldn't immediately result for the customer, they way were required to escalate it immediately to the duty manager, and that duty manager would go to the table and they would talk to the customer on. That was just even if you had a hint that the customer was unhappy in any way on did, he pointed out to me At that time, he said, You know we actually have an opportunity because customers come into our restaurant and they expect perfection just out of the gate. That's just they expect they're paying for a meal. They're paying for an experience, and they expect perfection. And when we give it to them, it doesn't stand out because it was what they expected, however, when we when we perform service recovery. So let's say we over cooked that steak or, you know, it takes an extra 20 minutes to deliver the meal over what we expect and what we target for for our customer experience, Um, and then I, as the duty manager, I go up, I show up, I front up to the customer and I make it right with them, whether it be comping a meal, whether it be giving them a gift card for their next time that they're in the restaurant or whether it be taking that product away, even though they have half eaten it and giving them a brand new one that's more to their liking or whatever the case may be. What it doesn't matter what it is that we did to recover the service, he said. If we do a good job recovering that in service recovery, then that experience of having a great recovery and ah, humble recovery will actually stick in the customer's mind. MAWR then if they came in and they had no problem whatsoever, and we actually have a chance to stand out as one of the good guys in good girls in their mind in terms of the way that we deal with challenges and problems, we can stand out as the guys that go way above and beyond and impress them to the point where they will tell their friends about the service recovery experience because we treated them so well and with so much respect. So he said, don't ever get frustrated or angry about situations where we fall short. Just make sure that I have an opportunity. Is the manager to make things right in a memorable way? And I think I think that's what brands forget. They forget that Ah, customer on the other end, particularly in an e commerce environment, whether it's buying through a marketplace like Amazon or through an own website doesn't matter. They expect perfection right nowadays, they expected to be fast. They expected to be accurate. They expected to be cheap. They expected to be free shipping. They you know, they expect the world. And when we deliver on that, it's just part of the expectation. We haven't overwhelmed them with something that goes beyond what they expect. However, when something goes wrong, if we recover well and when they ring in or they live, chat or they send feedback to customer service and then customer service overwhelms them with the quality of the way that they deal with that challenge and with a smile on their face and they go above and beyond, you know, sending out a return career path So it's free for them to return the goods or whatever the case may be, or not even requiring them to return the goods and saying, Look, send us a photo of the damage good or whatever it is, and and we'll just send you out a brand new And so, you know, we we just want to confirm that it is actually, you know, we want to see how the item was damaged so that we can package this better next time, so it doesn't happen again on day, and then we'll send you out a replacement or whatever, whatever the recovery is, the point of the fact is that many brands they do not understand the value off excellent service recovery to the enhancement of their brand value.
[0:36:48] George Reid: I think you're absolutely killed it there with the great recovery experience, six longer than excellent one on that. That's so true because you're right. Everything that's changing in the Amazon, particularly prime, has driven this consumer mindset. Shall we say off? Well, I expect it to be, Yeah, tomorrow. I remember being frankly disgusted when I arrived in Australia have become accustomed to next day delivery in the U. K. I'm looking to buy some rookie boots, and it was like added after we've given me seven day delivery and I was like Are you joking? E said. What's this thing? This is dreadful. I couldn't believe it. A capture. I had end up going toe Amazon to look for ruby boots, which is almost unheard off, particularly given that we're in Australian. It was just starting up. The selection was dreadful, but that negative thing I've become accustomed to this way, so you're absolutely right. In terms of customers are becoming accustomed to excellence if they get it. You know, when I used to get next day delivery as like are great. But in the same token, if I don't have a bad experience, you can leave an incredibly bitter taste, which I'm ready to tell people about or if it's turned around like I had a problem with my laptop recently, Microsoft Screen broke. Took it in that just give me a brand new laptop I told loads of people like I was ecstatic about. It was like a sad for the schoolboy running around telling people about how great Mike Software on it was probably a little bit pathetic in hindsight, but lots of people are like actually what I'm about to buy a new laptop. And remember, George Shane, like Microsoft, which is spot on with the customer service on Boom. They just got someone in for 1000 $2000 laptop, which perhaps we're gonna go to Dell. Can you put a data point on that when you make that connection? Absolutely not, but in terms of building your brand, it's an obvious thing to do. I think people who people in consumables who missed this I bewildered by some of the brands. I see the consumables category. To be honest with the activities that go about going, you could literally send someone a new a new bar of chocolate, a new bag of protein powder, a new whatever it happens to be because they didn't like the flavor. I don't like the flavor. This one it didn't quite described as well as I was expecting. Boom, Pick whatever flavor you want, we're going to send it to you next day delivery tomorrow, Andi, immediately. They've just gone. Okay, well, I'm going to stick with this protein powder company forever now because they're great on. Did you kept that customer? I think it's a really, really valid point there. But you're absolutely right. Many people, perhaps looking short term, perhaps rubbing their hands together with the margins a little bit going or well, that's going to cost us an extra X quid or whatever. But if that person works away from the restaurant like you said, that unhappy tells 10 people that 10 people don't go, then you shafted auras. 10 additional people come. You make your money back and more
[0:39:52] Jason Greenward: correct. Now you're spot on and and look that that advice that was given to me then, you know, because I was always a bit of a perfectionist. And I tell you that completely and forever altered my way of thinking around, you know, perfection and and being a perfectionist is that, you know, perfection is worse with human beings. Perfection is completely unattainable. But it's how do we turn around, You know, failures of performance and whatever metric you choose to measure that by How do we turn that around from a negative into an extreme positive? Not just a not just a grudging positive, but in extreme positive for the customer. And I think you know Jesus is set the bar in that area. And there's a few other you know, major international retailers who have really set the bar in that area and have have written books about it. And, you know, and Amazon themselves have have, you know, in many instances, set the bar of expectation with the customer around service recovery. And it's it is. It's just a it's just a big deal in. It's a It's a massive missed opportunity for a lot of online retailers. It really is because there were so embarrassed when something goes wrong that that almost rather ignore it than face it head on and take it as an opportunity to improved and enhance and extend their brand perception in the marketplace. Because that's what it is.
[0:41:12] George Reid: 100 100% 100% indeed. Now pivoting slightly. I wouldn't look a bad recommendations on bond. I see a lot of them, but I'm keen to hear what bad recommendations you hear a lot off right now in the Amazon world.
[0:41:26] Jason Greenward: Can u s. So are you saying that like there's a negative review of a product or what do you Sorry, What do you just Can
[0:41:31] George Reid: you clarify eso? No, in terms of the So what would define you? And I perhaps, is in Amazon expert e commerce expert, consultant, whatever it happens to be. And I think we're on linked in There's obviously a mass of information and the Google on Reddit and across all different Facebook groups. There is a massive information about Amazon about e commerce, shopper five, all these sorts of things. And there was lots of recommendations filtered and spread and thrown across all these platforms. And I know I see I see a lot of bad recommendations from other people out there. What are the some of the ones that you're seeing a lot off, where you're thinking, Who on earth is going to follow that
[0:42:14] Jason Greenward: look, it's funny. It's funny. You should say that. I think you make a excellent point, and I I tend to look at the source right, And I don't care whether it's advice on how to be better at Lincoln or more successful on LinkedIn. I don't I don't care whether it's you know how toe sell more on Shopify or Amazon or or you know what your channel mix should being for your vertical or you know how to do Facebook ads better. I don't really care where, what the advice is, I I tend to look at the source, and I say, Well, are they someone that I would look up to and I would like to emulate? And when we think of something like social media, for example, in social media advice, I look at things like, Well, how many followers did they have? How much content did they put out that I respect? You know how many platforms I have They've been successful on. If if I'm looking at social media advice, I'm gonna go to very Gary Vaynerchuk, right? You might not agree with his methods. You you might agree with his personality, but the man is a machine. And at the end of the day, you can't dispute his success on social media. So if I'm gonna listen to some guy over you know, I've got, you know, just over 15,000 followers on Lincoln, for example. And yet I have people coming to me almost every single day and sliding into my DMS and in mail, trying to sell me. They're linked in course, and they have 1000 followers on LinkedIn. And I'm thinking to myself, Well, why would I wanna replicate your stand and pay 150 bucks for the privilege of taking one of your courses? When you're you know, I look back and you haven't posted for a month. You have 1000 followers on LinkedIn and you're trying to sell me 100 $50. Course, it just it just doesn't resonate. And and so I think that you know, on. And that's true of everything. If if I if I have worked with someone or I can see if they can give me an example of their success in a given discipline thing, by all means. You know, like Avinash Kaushik, for example, from From Google. You know, I'll buy his analytics book analytics 2.0, and I'll follow his Occam's razor blogging everything else because he is a demonstrated Google Analytics will just analytics full stop and data science expert for the last 20 years, you know, and he can show that across many different domains, and and that's why I'll listen to him. And it's the same with any expert, you know, quote unquote expert. I look at their track record. I look at their history and I look, I look at them and I say, Is that a result that I would like to travel, figure out and find out how to emulate? And if not, then I just kind of ignore. I just ignore that advice because, ah, lot of people are giving advice outside their lane outside their experience, and it's purely hypothetical in nature. And for me, I'm all about the practice, the discipline, the honing, the craft of whatever it is that you do. I've been doing what I do for 20 years, right? Almost almost 20 years. About 19.5 years now. I've been doing what I do for almost 20 years, and it's probably only in the last 5 to 10 where I really feel I'm starting toe really know my shit, right? Like I'm I'm deep in it every single day on I stay up with absolutely latest trends in what I do on. I'm also working with brands every single day, doing what I do. So I guess I feel reasonably qualified based on that experience, to give the kind of feedback and advice that I do and particularly produce the kind of content that I do. Because, man, do I stay in a narrow lane. I like. I wouldn't, for example, I wouldn't consider myself an Amazon experts specifically because I've never had May e commerce brand. I managed that sold on Amazon in any significant quantity. So for me, I'm not. I don't consider myself in Amazon expert unless I've had a business that's been very, very successful selling on Amazon, so I just try to stay in my lane and I looked to people that are doing the same.
[0:46:09] George Reid: Mm. Do you think there's too much noise at the moment? I think linked in to suddenly going allowed on Facebook, groups of blowing up beyond belief. Do you think there's just so much noise about the topic that is Amazon as well as in generally comments?
[0:46:24] Jason Greenward: Look, you know, I'm of two minds with that, because the reality is is that when you've got pre co vid, we don't yet know exactly what the Post Cove in numbers is going to be yet. But when we look at New Zealand and we say that e commerce as a percentage of total retail is about 10% we look at Australia. We look at e commerce as a percentage of total retail, being about 15%. When we look at the UK and it's somewhere between 25 30% of total retail, not enough people, frankly, you're talking about e commerce, not enough people. Let's put it this way. Not enough qualified people are talking about it, nor is it got the penetration that those of us that have been working in the industry for years and years would love it to have, you know we like. I like to think I'm an expert. I like to think our industries so awesome and amazing and and, you know e commerce is just is a no brainer. But the data says otherwise. The data says that physical retail still sells the lion's share of all retail end and owns the lion's share of all retail spin. So whenever I get on my high horse about e commerce, I just have to think about those statistics. And I'm knocked off of my pedestal very, very quickly on The arrogance dissipates very, very quickly because we're doing frankly, ah, shitty job at getting the word out about e commerce. And we're creating frankly shitty experiences in e commerce in many cases, to the point where we don't own 50% off the retail spend yet. We're not even close.
[0:47:57] George Reid: Yeah, it's an interesting way of looking and completely turns out there for me like this. Perhaps we see it is a lot of noise because we're we're circling a little to a certain capacity, but you're right. It's still a tiny percentage with so much leg room to grow. And I spoke to another Amazon blow recently, he was like, You know, the Amazon thing is just scratching the surface. Like, really, if you really compare it to like you said retailers the whole to so much bigger s, I think Amazon sits around 50% of e commerce in the U. S. And around about 30 35% of e commerce in the UK Even that, then you look OK. What percentage is off the total retail? It's still tiny, really a za percentage. So there's loads and loads and loads for this beast to grow out, and I think it is slowly coming. And what's happening with Cobra is certainly give it a bit of a leg up. But still, there's so much room for for growth and, um, still so much more to learn for everyone who's who's playing in it, right,
[0:49:09] Jason Greenward: ah, 100%. And you, you hit the nail on the head again in terms of we live in an echo chamber that that that's the reality. And so those of us that Aaron Digital that are digital natives have been working in the space for a very long time. We live in an echo chamber surrounded by other specialists in our space most of the time. And as a result of that, it gives us this false narrative, this false lens on retail, that we're all powerful. And the reality is we're a minnow compared to all of retail. And you're right, you know, Amazon might be 50% of e commerce, the United States, but e commerce the United States is only about 20% of total retail. So realistically, they have about 10% of total retail in United States. Now that's massive concentration in any one hand of a 350 million person country that that is massive. There's no doubt about that. But you know, when we're talking about the room for growth and the room for improvement and the room for phage, it'll experiences the merging of the online and offline experience to extend the e commerce into the physical space and digital commerce into the physical space. The opportunities, you know, we all we have to do is look to Asia when if you wanna be put to shame and every western country, all we have to do is look to Asia and when we look at biometric purchasing When we look at, uh oh, just the the penetration of e commerce in Asia just smokes the West and the friction free nature of e commerce in those countries, from social commerce and everything on down and mobile payments through wechat and everything else, it is just we are light years behind Asia. So, you know, as I said, anytime I start thinking that we're doing pretty good and anytime I start thinking, man, we're starting to really move the needle here. I just start thinking about the real numbers and it puts me back in my place pretty quickly. What do you
[0:50:57] George Reid: do from an educational perspective, then for you personally? When you when you look at Asia, is that something you're keeping your finger on the pulse a little bit off to be like, What trends are happening there? How will that shape what's happening then in the Western world? Is that something you're personally doing and looking into and listening to, or what's the situation there?
[0:51:19] Jason Greenward: Well, my partners have Chinese have Vietnamese. She's New Zealand, born and raised, but culturally her, her family's have Chinese, have Vietnamese, so I definitely have, I guess, a connection to Asia. In that respect, the founder of Mustache Republic is Chinese. My good make Tony and you know a good percentage of our developers are Asian developers from various different parts of Asia. So I guess I've got my finger on the polls through family relationships through work relationships through, you know, But I also go out of my way to pay attention to Asia and what's happening from any commerce perspective in the digital commerce perspective in Asia. It's something that I that I I It's a distinct focus for me. But so is the UK, because from a Western country perspective, e commerce penetration in the U. K is the best of any country in the Western world on. As a result of that, I'll pay very, very close attention to the UK and particularly stats and data around e commerce coming out of the UK, And one of the most interesting stat I read recently that came out of the UK is that since the beginning of covert, I think they did a bit of research. There was ah research group that looked at the number of new e commerce customers, meaning people that had never purchased online in their life. Pre co vid there was within, I think, the first eight weeks of the first lock down There was over 600,000 customers in the UK who shopped online for the very first time in their life during that period. Now, not obviously not all those customers that can convert into forever online only customers. But it just goes to show that when the market is disrupted very rapidly, that behavioral change customer behavioral change can happen really, really quickly. And so you. There's probably a significant older demographic, for example, where their kids and grandkids were like, Hey, Granddad, let's show you how toe let's show you how to order your prescription online because we can't go down to the local pharmacy because of locked down restrictions. You know, things like that where all of a sudden we've got a whole potential new customer base that we never had before. So, yeah, I try to keep my finger on the pulse of the UK market in the Asia market very heavily.
[0:53:35] George Reid: Wow, uh, quite a novel statistic. If you throw, throw it in there, I'm sure we could go on for so much longer, but I think we'll have to put a pin in it and maybe maybe schedule a future chat for for another podcast. Otherwise, I fear we could go for an hour and a half before we know it. But, Jason, thank you. Thank you so much for for coming to Jack. To me, It's really good. I know. Actually shed loads of questions. I just completely glazed over as we didn't really need anything. Which is which is always a good sign of a nice a nice natter. But thanks again and re look forward to getting this baby out. We should be should be going live on Tuesday. Today is Thursday. For those listening on board the fourth speak Thio base in power.
[0:54:20] Jason Greenward: Absolutely not. Was I really, really enjoyed this. And obviously, once you've got it all, once you've got it all ended up and ready to go. I'll put it out there and we'll share it widely.
[0:54:30] George Reid: Julie shows you have you have a good rest of your day and I'll be in touch about Thanks. Talk to you soon. Bye Bye. Hey, guys, just a quick one. If you are enjoying the podcast on either have some actionable next steps or new ideas. I'd really appreciate if you could one subscribe to the show and leave us a review. Thes are really, really important to us. As you probably know, being in the Amazon world, aunt to If you're looking for additional support with your brand, head over to the website, it's always day one dot co dot UK. We've got links to other resource is as often our guys speak soon.
Thanks,
George
🙋 ➝ Amazon advertising management
🎤 ➝ It's Always Day One Podcast - [Apple, Website]
💡 ➝ Amazon Creatives Facebook Group
📝 ➝ Subscribe to our newsletters