Throughout our exploration of the Ipiphany eCommerce analysis and review, we’ve focused on how organisations can drive revenue and reduce site drop off by understanding how to improve customer experience and engagement through site interaction. Touchpoint Group offers the unique opportunity for eCommerce organisations to analyse not only their own platform's feedback, but that of their competitors to help identify and prioritise improvements and opportunities that have a measurable impact on customer retention.
In our last post, we explored how a customer experience journey analysis provides a structured way to investigate every interaction a customer has with a business, and how this analysis leads to the discovery of issues that impact spend, revenue, and retention. While we tend to focus on the negatives to identify areas of improvement, identifying the positive elements has two benefits. First, it allows businesses to learn from their successes and provides them with a platform to springboard off. Second, using a custom pain points and highlights report unique to Ipiphany, a business can track their changes and improvements over time to understand the true business impact issues are having on their revenue streams.
Today, we investigate this scenario as it plays out in the public reviews of Walmart’s eCommerce mobile platform to see what customers love most about shopping online at Walmart. You can learn more about the eCommerce customer experience offering on our overview page, or see it in action through the Walmart case study.
According to a 2018 study*, consumers are 21% more likely to leave a review after a negative experience than after a positive one, which translates to a higher concentration of negative reviews. This means a positive review could be considered to be “worth” more. If a customer has gone out of their way to share something they are enjoying about an organisation, it pays to pay attention.
In Walmart’s case, there’s one stand-out winner that customers are raving about. The Touchpoint team was able to identify this item in 24,000 public reviews in under half an hour using our AI text analytics tool, Ipiphany. Ipiphany has categorised it as “Find Thing” - reflecting the way customers commonly discuss this feature. Walmart calls it the Store Map. The Store Map, a simple feature, allows customers to search an item and have its location in the store displayed on a map - thus helping customers find the thing they’re looking for. If we filter to this segment, we can see that users who discuss using this feature rate the app significantly higher than the overall average Walmart score.
The Store Map feature is the single most highly rated feature in Walmart customers’ public reviews of the app and has been since its release in November 2018. Although the frequency of reviews discussing the Store Map decreased following the COVID-19 pandemic as shoppers opted to place orders online, as they began to go back to shopping in-store, we can track a correlated increase in positive reviews. Walmart has done an effective job of identifying something customers struggle with (locating items in their physical stores) and offered a streamlined in-app solution that creates a more efficient shopping experience, encourages app use, and eliminates this obstacle for their customers.
The flow-on effect is greater still, reducing customer experience issues in-store, browsing time and encouraging shoppers to consult the app instead of a Walmart team member. Continuing to identify obstacles and provide solutions at all stages of the customer journey in this way will help Walmart improve customer experience both in-store and online and contribute to customer retention and satisfaction.
One of the pivotal messages we’ve taken away from the COVID-19 pandemic is that, when required, big shifts can be made in the way businesses operate. Customers have adapted to new shopping habits and technologies to achieve their needs and during this time of extreme change they are looking for the path of least resistance to have these needs met.
Paying close attention to the way your customers discuss your organisation both positively and negatively can provide insight into what is valuable to customers, and what will keep them coming back. Walmart’s attention to detail in aspects of their service that are important to customers will propel them forward as eCommerce options to continue their exponential growth as a retail channel.
Continuous analysis of the customer feedback that comes with this growth gives businesses a level of clarity that provides opportunities for continuous improvement, and Ipiphany provides effortless reporting to make this easier for businesses. To get started with the Touchpoint Group eCommerce Analysis and Reporting service and find out how Ipiphany can provide valuable analysis, get in touch with our team today.
*https://www.reviewtrackers.com/reports/online-reviews-survey/
Are you struggling to stay on top of reviews and customer feedback? Make concrete, data-driven decisions using Ipiphany: Contact us today to schedule a demo with your data.