Trust me Not
A quick story of a retail (failed) experience.
Anyone that has small children knows the feeling of having an easy Sunday night disturbed by realizing you forgot to get something your kids will need for activities at the school during the coming week. It could be as insignificant as a package of crayons or as complex as a new outfit.
If you don’t have kids, trust me, it can drive you crazy to think your kid would be that kid left out, the one that forgets to bring activity props to school every time. What do you do? You jump online to your favorite e-commerce, pick what you need, click same day or next day delivery, you don’t care about the price, all you want to do is getting this issue solved; you pay with your credit card, get a confirmation order number and off you go to feeling like the best parent in the world, juggling hundred things, getting lost in the middle, but coming thru at the end of regulation time.
In Covid-19 times, this might be different. You might not need to buy something for your kids to take to school, but you will most likely need it for a crazy new online activity the teacher came up with. (Shout out to all the crazy, creative, amazing teachers around)
Now follow me on the next scenario. Imagine Monday morning comes, and you expect your package before your kid’s activity at school. You believe you have time, and worst-case scenario, if it gets home after your kids leave for school, you have the hip new courier app to get it to them before the activity even starts.
Halfway morning goes by, and nothing yet. You check the tracking number, and it tells you the order was processed and that it might have left for your place. No more, no less. Panic sets in and you try to contact delivery support, wait on-line for a while just to get a robot to attend you and telling you the same information you got in the system. Finally due time comes, and your order never gets home, your kid gets to be ’The One’ that does not take part in activities, and you become ‘The Parent’ that does not take part or care about the growth of your kids.
What happened? You did everything right. You chose and bought the item; you payed for the item, you even paid for the extra cost of next day delivery, and it didn’t work. Trust has been broken, and believe me, it is not you, is your friendly e-commerce provider.
It might look like a fun story, but to be honest, this happens more times than not. Not forgetting to get something for your kids, but that a lot of e-commerce platforms aren’t prepare to give you the only experience that truly matters to a client, the feeling of trust. That feeling you get when you order something online, without even seen in it in a physical store, and you get exactly what you order, in the time you were told, and in the condition they promised you. This means seller accountability, and to any company digital sale strategy, it means increased revenue and loyal customers.
Trust moves us to acquire any product or service. Yes, desire matters, but MORE times than not, you desire only what you can trust.
The big issue is that during this Pandemic, companies have focused almost entirely in building their e-commerce presence, with all the bells and whistles, but forget that their e-commerce platform is just a pretty face to a sometimes hollow back-end process.
Even those with a mature e-commerce presence. Thanks to Covid19, online sales rose between 5x to 7x already during 2020. Volume like that consume every supply chain, logistics and back-end strategy a company could have had in place.
As much infrastructure and platforms companies have, the lack of communication between them and the lack of awareness in the whole digital sales process, kills the experience.
I have seen this in small, medium and gigantic companies. The lack of visibility brings lack of awareness and ends up in lack of execution at the front line.
As in the physical space, companies that thought the purchasing experience was done after the checkout line, companies that believes the e-commerce experience consists of a great APP or a great e-commerce site, are in for a long headache.
Once trust is lost it will be a long time to get it back. In fact, according to Adobe Digital Index 2020, 25% of clients that have had a bad experienced, will desist and not come back to the site.
Trust equals revenue. It is that simple. retailers shouldn’t forget what it’s at stake.
