Clienteling
In today's digital age, retailers face immense competition and challenges when attracting and retaining the best customers.
The meteoric rise of e-commerce giants as well as changing consumer behavior have transformed how customers shop today and how they interact with brands. As a result, modern clienteling tools and apps have become a game-changer for brands in the world of eCommerce.
Clienteling apps offer a modern approach to building relationships with your customers, and the benefits are many. One such clienteling app is Humankind, and let me tell you, it's a game-changer.. but we'll get to that in a moment.
So, what exactly are modern clienteling apps? In simple terms, these apps are designed to help eCommerce stores and brands connect with their customers on a deeper level. The best clienteling apps even offer brands the ability to connect their customers 1:1 and provide incredible shopping experiences.
They do this by collecting rich customer data and insights that can be used to create tailored marketing campaigns and personalized product recommendations.
Since relationships can't be built without some knowledge of a person…
One of the key features of modern clienteling apps is their ability to track customer behavior and preferences. This allows brand marketers to gather important information such as purchase history, interests, and personal preferences so they can create powerfully connected experiences for their most loyal customers - making them feel valued and appreciated.
We spoke briefly about this in the last section but - First and foremost, clienteling apps are important because they help eCommerce stores create a more personalized shopping experience for their customers. By gathering rich customer data such as purchase history, interests, and preferences, they also help you tailor marketing campaigns and provide personalized recommendations based on customer preferences.
This builds customer loyalty and customers feel valued and appreciated, which can ultimately lead to repeat purchases.
Repeat purchases are one of the best ways to keep CAC (customer acquisition cost) low. After you've paid for the initial acquisition of a new customer, and the customer experience hopefully generated a positive ROI (return on investment), you won't have the high costs of acquiring them again.
Another reason why clienteling apps are important for eCommerce stores is their ability to track customer behavior across multiple channels. By integrating with various channels such as email, social media, and SMS, brands and eCommerce marketers can gather important data about customer interactions and preferences. This data can then be used to provide a seamless, omnichannel shopping experience for customers.
Modern clienteling apps such as Humankind offer the ultimate clienteling solution for eCommerce stores looking to increase customer loyalty and engagement. The reason Humankind puts so much effort into creating excellent customer experiences is that our platform was built after studying more than 1,000,000 customer interactions to understand what they want and need.
Our feedback from those interactions shows that excellent shopping experiences increase loyalty, and loyalty builds a relationship upon trust, which leads to repeat purchases - it's a cyclic effect.
And, this effect is why our conversational commerce software is the only one that offers 1:1 human connection through text.
Clienteling apps like Humankind work by gathering important customer data such as purchase history, interests, and preferences. This data is then used to create a more personalized online shopping experience for customers. You've heard me repeat this "ad nauseam" but it's true - that's the process!
Let's go through a sample scenario so you can see how this works:
Go to cascadiatents.com and on the lower right-hand side of the screen, you'll see a button that says "Find the perfect gear - click text with an expert." When you click, a chat window will appear that allows you to connect directly to a remote concierge/ personal shopper who can guide you through your buying process and create an excellent buying experience.
Since Cascadia is a brand built primarily for Overlanders and Outdoors People, the person that you're chatting with has been trained to provide expert advice on vehicle top tents, sleeping bags, and other camping gear for your next adventure.
The personal shopper will also ask for your preferences such as budget, camping style, weather conditions you like to camp in, and any additional needs that would help them give you the best advice possible. They can then use this data to provide personalized recommendations tailored specifically to your needs.
But that's not all - say that you're tight on time and have to jump for a work call, or have to go pick up your kids from school, the remote concierge can SMS message you a custom landing page with each of the products that they recommended, added to your cart, so all you have to do is checkout…
But since you had a real text conversation with a human being, you've made a purchase that felt more like texting a close friend.
By integrating with various channels such as web, mobile, email, social media, and SMS, brands can gather important data about customer interactions and preferences. This data can then be used to provide a seamless, omnichannel shopping experience for customers.
So, if you're asking, "How does Humankind specifically work?" Well, that's how - and that’s why we say that we're the only solution on the market that offers a 1:1 human connection with a trained product expert who represents your products.
This is where I need to make a distinction, clienteling apps say that they connect customers directly with product experts – but in our research, we found that this is not true. Most of the clienteling software from our competitors actually runs generic call centers that serve many brands and don't connect you to a real person until the conversation has become too much for the Ai.
But let's be honest, by that time the customer is probably frustrated and has left the chat anyway, so connecting them to a generic call center for answers is not helpful.
Our platform, Humankind, has been designed to provide a true 1:1 human connection with your brand's product experts that are trained and knowledgeable about the products you sell. The customer can ask questions, receive personalized recommendations, and be directed to specific pages on your website in order to make an informed purchase decision – all within a few clicks.
The answer is both the customer and the brand.
By using client data, the concepts of clienteling, and a clienteling app or conversational commerce software to enable them to offer these customized experiences to their clients, eCommerce stores create more opportunities for profit, customers feel like they've actually connected with a person who's understood them…
"A rising tide raises all ships," as they say.
These practices lead to high client satisfaction and long term, will increase sales, referrals, and reputations which lead to improved customer satisfaction and retention.
Sounds like a win-win!
The core of clienteling is generating a repeat customer. As long as the concept has been around, it's always been about providing an incredible experience so the customer keeps coming back.
Now you could say this practice stems from selfish motivation, and technically you'd be right, but what customer doesn't love to be known by name, to be asked about their family, their life, and other things that are important to them?
Being seen and known is something that's integral to human relationships and that's why every brand that wants to create a true connection with their customers should understand and execute the basic concepts of modern clienteling.
But are there downsides?
Yes, there are downsides to clienteling - we're only going to talk about one of them today; we have an article on this topic which you can read by clicking on the link provided here.
So what's the biggest downside of clienteling? The time and effort it takes to engage in practice.
Generally, eCommerce stores are run by fairly lean teams. As a whole, the tech industry has recently experienced recessions and layoffs that have affected our workforce and right now, I’m sure the thought of having to take on one more responsibility will make any marketer's eyes roll.
This is where technology comes in - by leveraging conversational commerce software by Humankind, you can automate much of the clienteling process and provide personalized experiences for your customers. What's more, Humankind can scale efforts as you grow, so your customer experience and clienteling efforts are always on point.
So if you’re thinking of adding clienteling to your strategy, Humankind can make it a whole lot easier!
Absolutely! As mentioned earlier, besides the obvious fact that clienteling helps build relationships and keep customers coming back, there are other benefits as well.
One of the biggest advantages of using a clienteling app like Humankind is that it simplifies the transaction for both the customer and the brand. Having a guided experience means that customers can quickly and easily find what they're looking for, while brands can track customer actions in real-time to see what resonates with their customers.
One question that we get asked constantly when we're talking about the benefits of clienteling is:
Customer service is a great way to provide answers to questions for new customers and even help with existing customer queries, however, it doesn’t give you the opportunity to build stronger relationships.
Customer service platforms are mostly run on metrics like open ticket times and closed ticket rates. This means that the focus is on answering queries and providing solutions instead of understanding customer needs and building relationships.
Clienteling on the other hand helps you create long-term relationships with customers. By leveraging insights from conversations, clienteling allows you to provide personalized offers and experiences that will keep your customers coming back for more.
While imperfect, clienteling is a powerful tool for any brand looking to build connections and relationships with their customers that lead to more sales. By understanding customer needs and providing personalized experiences, brands can ensure that their customers keep coming back for more…
And, according to PwC, that's exactly what customers crave.
In a recent study, more than 82% of the consumers who were surveyed said that they wanted more human interaction in their shopping experiences... and they would pay more for it.
With the right conversational commerce platform, like Humankind, you can make sure that your customers get the experience they want and deserve - one that's built on trust and connection.
So why not give clienteling a try? It could be just what your brand needs to stand out from the competition.
So if you're looking for a clienteling solution that offers customers 1:1 human interaction that's scalable, book your demo of Humankind to chat with someone from our team. We'd love to show you how our clienteling solution can help you build relationships while increasing sales.
