eBusiness Strategy

Selecting The Right Services Firm Can Make Or Break Your Project And Your Business

Brian Walker — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:20:25 +0000

When commerce platform initiatives kick-off the discussion naturally turns to commerce platforms, order management solutions, content management, search, and many, many other point solutions. Often the question of who will help integrate the solution is left for last. This is frequently a mistake.

In fact, selecting the right services firm can make or break your project, and therefore your business. As commerce programs that reach across customer touch-points get more complex and risky, the process of selecting a services provider has become increasingly critical to businesses' success or failure. Yesterday's relatively simple eCommerce projects have become today's customer experience, business, and technology transformation programs.

These programs are not simple, and require an investment in time, money, and resources. It is not a matter of just wiring up the commerce platform, but instead a whole set of business processes, systems, and strategies will also be impacted. And these skills and expertise are very difficult to keep on staff, requiring companies to supplement with external services providers. Companies now require a multi-disciplined vendor partner to guide decisions upon which rest millions of dollars of revenue, brand differentiation, customer satisfaction, and careers.

2012 Mobile Trends: What’s On Your Strategic Roadmap?

Julie Ask — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:30:00 +0000

Let's take a step back, first. You started as the "mobile person" two to three years ago. You siphoned a hundred thousand dollars or so from the eBusiness team budget and got a mobile optimized web site and maybe an application or two built. You measured your success by engagement - web traffic and application downloads. Maybe you measured direct revenue. Life was easy.

Two to three years later, as eBusiness professionals, you've got some experience with building, deploying and maintaining mobile services. You've added tablets to your portfolio. Hopefully you've convinced your organization that you need at least a 7-figure budget. Most industries have seen clear financial returns on these investments so that hasn't been too hard. As eBusiness professionals working on mobile, you were feeling a lot of love.

In 2011, you benchmarked yourselves versus your competition. You looked at native applications by platform and key functionality on mobile web and applications. You took a deep breath and said, "ok, we've done it. We have mobile services. We've checked the box. Mobile web traffic and sales are growing. We're good." Perhaps others with fewer services are thinking, "I can see what we need to do. I think we can catch up if I can get some budget."

The thing you are seeing though is - the finish line is out of sight. Mobile has only gotten more complicated - not less. No one feels comfortable. No one feels they can slow down, stop spending, or rest. Anxiety levels are high.

Onboarding: Financial Services Out-Of-Box Experience

Brad Strothkamp — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:34:47 +0000

The drive for revenue and the desire to improve the customer experience are converging within financial services, with one of the results being a renewed interest in new customer onboarding. On the revenue side, the importance of onboarding is clearer. A new customer who leaves after opening a new account is an expensive proposition. For something like deposit accounts, that attrition rate is somewhere between 25% to 30% of new customers, and when you add up the cost to acquire the account, the cost to open the account, and the potential loss of ongoing revenue, the impact can be huge to a financial services firm.

On the customer experience side, a new revelation has surfaced. Onboarding is to financial services what out-of-box is to companies like Apple computer. Apple sweats the details around the experience of getting, opening, and engaging with their devices. Financial service companies do little in that way, but that is changing with a renewed desire to improve the customer experience. That is where onboarding comes in. Onboarding is the out-of-box experience for financial service product. It is the processes and experience new customers have as they activate and utilize a new product.

Forrester just published a document that outlines our strategic thinking about how best to approach new customer onboarding from an organization, metrics, strategy, and execution perspective. I would also encourage you to take a look at work that Harland Clarke, JD Power, and other firms have done with justifying onboarding from a customer experience and dollars and cents perspective.

Finovate Europe 2012: Innovation In Digital Financial Services

Benjamin Ensor — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:17:39 +0000

A number of people asked me to repeat my blog post from last year with my impressions from Finovate, so I thought I would.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Finovate, it's a fast-paced format with seven-minute live demos and pitches from 35 financial technology vendors. It's produced by Online Financial Innovations, the people behind the excellent NetBanker blog.

I was lucky enough to go along to the show in London today. Unlike last year, when four or five themes dominated the day, this year's exhibitors were more diverse. Among them were:

The Brick-And-Mortar Renaissance

Peter Sheldon — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:05:58 +0000

Since the 1970's, retail stores have slowly undergone a digital evolution. POS systems replaced cash registers, credit cards became the payment norm, and security tags reminded shoppers to pay. Despite these changes, the fundamentals of the customer shopping experience remained unchanged: We still pick up products, ponder a decision, and either leave empty-handed or wait in line to pay.

However, in the digitally connected store of 2012, big changes are underway. Fixed checkout aisles and cash registers are being replaced by smartphone-wielding store associates who now take the checkout to the customer. Furthermore, the smartphone generation performs self-assisted checkouts directly from their phones while sleek new in-store touch-screens allow them to experience products without opening the box or removing the coat hanger.

Welcome to the brick-and-mortar renaissance.

In my new report, The Digitization of the In-Store Experience, I take a detailed look at the digital transformation underway at retailers across the US and Europe, including:

Google, Amazon, Apple, And Facebook: What eBusiness Executives Need To Know For 2012

Sucharita Mulpuru — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:11:04 +0000

Nearly 50% of web shoppers start their research process on Amazon or Google. Over 40% of the world's Internet traffic constitutes daily visits to Facebook and Google. Twenty-one percent and 49% of iPhone and iPad owners respectively purchasing products via these devices. Google, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook not only absorb consumer time but are quickly becoming gateways for other eBusiness traffic. This makes the Big Four critical in the product research and sales funnel. In our recently published report, "Google, Amazon, Apple, And Facebook: What eBusiness Executives Need To Know For 2012" we help eBusiness professionals identify what's on the horizon for these companies and what it means for them. Some key findings of the report include the following:

eCommerce

Is Facebook Worth It? You Bet

Sucharita Mulpuru — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:32:52 +0000

I was called a Facebook hater last week. No ambiguity. "You're such a hater!" this woman, who happened to be a social media marketer at a large retailer, told me. I will admit, I have reservations about Facebook's role in commerce which has no doubt made her job more difficult, but I must defend myself. I'm not a hater. In fact, contrary to all the tweets and blogs questioning Facebook's purported $100B valuation, I actually think the company is worth all of it and probably more. (To those same critics, if Facebook with $1B in profits is overvalued, what does that say about Groupon with about as much in losses? But that's a discussion for another day.) Here are some considerations:

Don't Believe The Hype: 5 Trends to Watch (and 5 to Ignore) for On-line Retail in 2012

Martin Gill — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:31:31 +0000

Every year at Forrester we take a look ahead at the driving forces behind online retail and make some predictions about how we think things will evolve and we try and identify the key trends to watch or even act upon. This year we've done things a little differently.

Sucharita Mulpuru has taken a look at the "Key Trends in US Retail eBusiness" while I've concentrated on "European Retail: Key Trends to Watch in 2012".

Broadly we find similar themes - multichannel, mobile and changing consumer behavior in light of the continually depressing economic condition. But there are some notable differences in Europe. I've said this before, but I will continue repeating it - the national, cultural, language and regulatory differences that persist across Europe make European eBusiness a complex beast. 2012 will bring us more in the way of EU strategy papers and directives as the European Commission begins to formulate what their "Single Digital Market" looks like in reality. While we are unlikely to see many changes immediately, the EC's vision for the future will begin to crystallize. Add to that changes to the e-privacy and distance selling directives that must be acted upon, European eBusiness executives are going to have a busy time in 2012 just keeping abreast of legislation.

Citibank Moves Boldly Into The Tablet Banking Market

Peter Wannemacher — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:21:58 +0000

Hotcakes, you've got some competition: the phrase "selling like tablets" might soon enter the global lexicon. And it's not all hype -- though there is a fair bit of that as well. Tablet users in the US are estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 51% from 2010 to 2015. That's a fast-growing market for firms of all stripes.

As such, the tablet as a touchpoint is becoming a critical consideration for eBusiness & Channel strategists. This is especially true for executives at banks, as financial transactions benefit from the immediacy of the mobile channel, but users often struggle to make these transactions on smaller smartphone screens.

Enter tablet banking.

Forrester has previously identified best practices for tablet apps in financial services, but only in the past year have leading banks rolled out robust tablet banking efforts. One of the strongest tablet offerings we've seen is from Citibank.

In my new report, I outline the process Citibank went through in building its own tablet banking strategy, developing an iPad app, rolling it out to customers, and continually improving the service. We outline how Citi:

When Was "You're Welcome" Replaced With "Uh-Huh"?

Diane Clarkson — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:42:08 +0000

One of the essential differentiators of great customer service experiences is the human interaction.

Some folks want a chatty interaction with a full narrative on the weather. Others just want quick and friendly contact. But the bottom line is this we all want to have an experience that leads us to feel appreciated. This human interaction is key element to one of the three tenets of our Customer Experience Index: "How enjoyable were they to do business with?"

I considered this recently while at my neighborhood pharmacy. The company offers best-in-class customer service technology. They proactively remind me of prescription refills, they have a sophisticated mobile app, and their store layout is easy to navigate.

But I am invariably invited from the queue to the cash register by a shout of "Next!" and the only words offered to me are the sum I owe. For all their best-in-class retail and mobile strategies, I never walk away feeling that the company is enjoyable to do business with. Instead, I walk away wondering when was "you're welcome" replaced with "uh-huh"?

A great customer service experience is the result of the right technology, processes, and the human factor. To ensure the human factor isn't marginalized, eBusiness leaders must:

The Guts To Grow: What Amazon.com, Trader Joe's, And Westin Hotels Have In Common

Sucharita Mulpuru — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:04:56 +0000

I received a curious email from one of the founders of eBags the other day. In it, he said that by bringing customer service back to the US and away from an offshore vendor, the company actually reduced customer service costs by 34% (yes, reduced!) while still growing sales by double digits in Q4. It reminded me of another article not too long ago from the Wall Street Journal that cited Qantas as having one of the world's best check-in experiences because the airline invested in RFID tags for passengers, a decision that the article pointed out no other airline has yet copied. These examples stood out to me because these companies managed to pull off a very difficult trick: to make contrarian investments that industry peers would consider hogwash that nonetheless pay off in spades. It's more likely that such investments would backfire, but when they work, they succeed beautifully. Three cases in point:

Why Facebook Is Still A Tough Sell For Retailers

Sucharita Mulpuru — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:20:23 +0000

As the Facebook IPO nears, all eyes are on the valuation the company will command. The vast majority of that valuation will come from the company's digital advertising business. As for commerce, don't expect much. About a year ago, I asked the question Will Facebook Ever Drive eCommerce? and the answer hasn't significantly changed in the time since. Not only has Facebook seemingly been much more focused on the display ad side of the business all but dismissing retail (they rejected a keynote slot at the annual Shop.org summit last year and rumor has it that they turned down the slot following Bill Clinton at this year's National Retail Federation big show, the trade show in all of retail), but the numbers that retailers have shared with us are no more encouraging:

Ways Manufacturers Can Drive Higher Conversion Rates Through The Online Retail Channel

Andy Hoar — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:02:29 +0000

In a keyword-driven Web world, brand manufacturers get more than their fair share of Web shopping traffic. But because most manufacturers maintain a relatively small direct-to-consumer business, they largely rely on online retail partners to convert leads that originate on their websites. Disintermediated from the final sale, manufacturers often know little about how to optimize the lead referral process that begins on their own websites.

To gain some valuable insight into how manufacturers can help optimize sales conversions downstream, Forrester teamed up with Channel Intelligence, a company that tracks the purchase path of leads from manufacturers' websites to online retailers' websites. Forrester and Channel Intelligence analyzed over 44 million clicks across 150 manufacturer websites spanning two full years of closed-loop sales data (2010-2011). In our new report, "Top Three Ways Manufacturers Can Drive Higher Conversion Rates Through the Online Retail Channel," we identify clear best practices from the clickstream analysis. A sample of key findings:

online retail

What Role Does PFM Play In Online Banking's Future?

Tiffani Montez — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:01:11 +0000

As a new analyst researching vendors for digital banking, I wanted to share an observation as eBusiness and Channel Strategists are making decisions about digital financial services investments. In the last few months, I've interviewed personal financial management vendors and banks about their PFM implementations. One notable theme is bubbling up to the surface, what role does PFM play in online banking's future?

With notable success in driving higher engagement, vendors and banks report that customers spend between a 2-4x more time in PFM than online banking. While both online banking and PFM have similar goals to increase retention, cross-sell, loyalty, and provide customers with greater insight into their financial picture, both offer different customer experiences. Functionally, the main difference is that online banking supports transfer and self-service capabilities, while PFM does not support transferring capabilities and may loosely, at best, integrate self-service. The biggest difference is customer experience.

Will 2012 Be The Year Financial eBusiness Teams Fully Embrace Video?

Benjamin Ensor — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:51:58 +0000

I love video as a communication media. The combination of sound and moving pictures so much more engaging and more memorable than text.

We wrote in our research last year about how we're starting to see video being used more and more by eBusiness teams as an efficient and effective way to educate customers about products, encourage sales and deliver customer service.

With the Academy Awards coming up, we thought it would be both fun and helpful to highlight some of the best examples we've seen of online video in retail financial services in the past year. With the help of the rest of team, I've drawn up a list of our favourites in five categories:

Product marketing video
DNB's S for Savings Plan video (Norway).
PayPal's future of shopping video.

Service marketing video
Commonwealth Bank of Australia's Welcome to NetBank video.
E*Trade's Take Control In 3 Easy Steps video (US).
Mint.com's 90-second overview (US).
Lloyds TSB's money manager video (UK).

eBusiness Strategy

Selecting The Right Services Firm Can Make Or Break Your Project And Your Business

Categories:

2012 Mobile Trends: What’s On Your Strategic Roadmap?

Categories:

Onboarding: Financial Services Out-Of-Box Experience

Categories:

Finovate Europe 2012: Innovation In Digital Financial Services

Categories:

The Brick-And-Mortar Renaissance

Categories:

Google, Amazon, Apple, And Facebook: What eBusiness Executives Need To Know For 2012

Categories:

Is Facebook Worth It? You Bet

Don't Believe The Hype: 5 Trends to Watch (and 5 to Ignore) for On-line Retail in 2012

Citibank Moves Boldly Into The Tablet Banking Market

Categories:

When Was "You're Welcome" Replaced With "Uh-Huh"?

Categories:

The Guts To Grow: What Amazon.com, Trader Joe's, And Westin Hotels Have In Common

Why Facebook Is Still A Tough Sell For Retailers

Ways Manufacturers Can Drive Higher Conversion Rates Through The Online Retail Channel

Categories:

What Role Does PFM Play In Online Banking's Future?

Will 2012 Be The Year Financial eBusiness Teams Fully Embrace Video?

Categories: