Point, Click and Shake Hands: Personal Value in Ecommerce

In a great article on the importance of humanizing brands in improving ecommerce loyalty, Chris Malone outlines his study’s findings that “online shoppers at ‘multi-channel’ retailers such as Best Buy, Macy’s, Sears and Walmart reported much higher customer loyalty than those who had only made in-store purchases.”

The bottom line: personal value matters.

Many of our recent conversations with clients have centered on communicating personal value. In the race-to-the-bottom fueled by Google Shopping, eBay and Amazon (among others), a customer-centric approach is critical — particularly for brands looking to differentiate in a commoditized industry. “Human brands,” as Malone calls them, can actually change the buying calculus, shifting the conversation from price to more intangible differentiators, like personal customer service:

“In our research, customers rated Zappos very highly for loyalty-inspiring distinctions, such as its ability to resolve problems fairly and acting in its customers’ best interests. Those same Zappos customers ranked the company’s ‘value’ and ‘lowest prices’ as only 8^th and 14^th in importance, respectively. Zappos has been able to use a balance of technology and direct contact between customers and employees to build deep and lasting customer loyalty, despite selling their products at full, department store retail prices. As a result, Zappos generates 75 percent of its sales every day from repeat customers.”

Research indicates that the same holds true in the B2B space. According to a recent Google-CEB Market Leadership Council study of 3,000 B2B buyers, “personal value” plays a significant role in B2B purchase decisions:

What does it mean for online marketers?

At the end of the day, we’re all human – B2C and B2B customers alike. As web usability expert Jakob Nielsen puts it, “The same person who’s a ‘B’ during working hours is a ‘C’ in the evening.” Regardless of whether we’re shopping for a new pair of shoes or enterprise-level software solutions, our preference for personalized, human interaction is a powerful motivator. Offline or online, brands should take notice.