Listening to customers is an incredibly rewarding practice in the loyalty marketing arena. That tried-and-true practice has paid handsome dividends in the form of brand loyalty at ShoeBuy, the e-commerce retail footwear and clothing site.
Shoebuy is in the news, having just acquired a minority stake in Boston Boot Company. The purchase expands Shoebuy into footwear manufacturing, and allows the company to directly deliver products directly to customers. Kavita Baball, ShoeBuy’s SVP of Customer Experience & Retention, discussed customer engagement and listening to customers with Loyalty360.
How does voice of the customer feedback impact your customer experiences?
Our full executive team is plugged into feedback from our customers–from the metrics to the content in our customer surveys–to help us continually improve and make changes, if appropriate, to the experience. Every project we undertake is
informed by input from our customers. We have always had loyal customers, but we are also uncovering new areas of opportunity, and so both vantage points will help to drive our success to the next level.
Who is the champion of customer experience at ShoeBuy?
Our customer is at the center of everything we do at ShoeBuy, so really, every team and every employee across the company works to bring our customer to the forefront.
How do you define CX?
For us, the customer experience is any touch point or interaction our customers might have with our brand along their shopping journey–from shopping the site or contacting customer service to the back end of fulfilling their order to our communications and social media channels.
How do you measure the effectiveness/efficacy of the program?
We look at customer service and loyalty surveys we have in place, we measure customer service interactions and site experience, and we offer multiple opportunities along the customer’s shopping experience for them to provide feedback and input into these systems.
Is the basis of your CX strategy short-term, medium, longer term or all three?
It’s all three. We are constantly looking to optimize CX in the short term, while we build out on longer-term goals and projects. To really deliver a great experience, you need to be able to respond quickly when needed, without taking your eyes off the end goal.
Is measurement for efficacy different based on the term?
Our measurement strategy takes both quantitative and qualitative metrics into account–you can’t look at just one side of the data to understand the full picture. We look at customer service center metrics, loyalty metrics, etc. and our scorecard is relatively consistent. We’re tracking all of these metrics over time and for some, daily metrics are important while for others, it’s more about longer-term trends.
Has there been an “ah-ha” moment in this journey?
Customer expectations change over time, so even though you may deliver a good experience now, you have to always consider the customer and their changing needs and expectations. With the market, completion and options for customers continuing to evolve, this is an area where every company needs to stay fresh in order to truly provide a great customer experience with every interaction.