The customer journey in purchasing a mobile phone is far from linear. People like to explore multiple devices, network providers and OS. The overwhelming task is often alleviated by a helpful salesperson who can guide them through the noise.
This use case will examine the current situation and how Confer With can help your brand reach customers to engage, inspire and guide your customer – all with live video shopping.
What to expect
- Current situation
- Why live video shopping for mobile phones?
- Matching shoppers
- Engaging with an expert
- Immersing the customer
- Leveraging add ons
- Recap
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Current situation
Back in 2013, Google released a thinkinsights report which revealed ways in how people shop for mobile phones. Despite its somewhat old release, it illustrates a very modern way of shopping.
- 66% consider two mobile phones.
- 47% of people consider two network providers.
- One in every five watches mobile phone review videos.
People also make informed decisions based on countless mobile phone reviews online too. One popular YouTuber, Marques Brownlee, who has over 13.7 million subscribers releases daily smartphone reviews to immense engagement.
This means your team needs to be equipped with the technology to ensure you hold strong influence over the online shopping journey. In meantime, building customer loyalty by demonstrating excellence is vitally important too.
Lastly, it’s no secret that online conversion rates sit between 1-5%. High traffic and a self-service UX leads to overwhelmed customers and abandoned baskets. Therefore, how can your mobile phone retailer compete with instore tractions that sit above 40%?
Let’s find out.
Why live video shopping for mobile phones?
So far what we have covered is:
- The customer journey is complicated with many steps.
- Mobile shops must create strong influence in selling products.
Live video shopping unlocks customers to engage and immerse themselves in the product experience, from a distance. With a video commerce platform, new possibilities open. The aim is to replicate the retail experience as much as possible from a distance, but also leverage the scale of eCommerce to assist with conversions.
Confer With works with businesses to master process in using four steps.
1) Matching shoppers
2) Immerse
3) Understanding needs
4) Leveraging Add ons
Matching shoppers with the right mobile phone expert
The Apple vs Android battle will persist but choosing a phone depends on several factors including:
- Camera
- Battery
- Speed
- Size
- Screen resolution
A potential customer visits your website and scans through a variety of options but all they can rely on are descriptive texts, product video and review comments. Maybe they want an in-depth comparison between the recent iPhone against the Samsung Galaxy range.
Confer With can assist in getting these questions answered.
For large businesses, we use an intelligent algorithm to match the right expert to the customer based on geographical factors and history purchases. Small businesses can too rejoice as we use an efficient matching process, reducing workload.
Is your team unavailable? No problem. We’ve partnered with Calendly to centralise your online booking and provide transparency across your team regardless of location.
Engaging with a mobile phone expert
Following a successful matching process with no unnecessary swiping involved, it’s now time for the customer to engage with your experts all via video.
The call kickstarts digital dialogue and the expert can begin to understand the customer needs. What’s their current phone? Apple or Android? Selfies or video?
Your team can begin to map out the needs and wants to seamlessly introduce recommendations and add ons.
Immersing the customer
Conversation is flowing and the customer feels relaxed in this new environment.
However, the issue with generic video calls is the lack of immersion.
At Confer With, we enhanced this by creating a virtual shared basket. This takes everyone involved one step closer to the in-the-flesh experiences.
Your team members can immerse the customer in the following ways:
- Display imagery, videos and physical products
- Select products based on their needs.
- Respond immediately to feedback
- Add items to the basket
The customer can also select images and choose how many items they want in the basket too.
It’s important to note that although people embrace digital video daily, shopping via video is a new concept in the UK. It is vital to create a relaxing and safe environment for them to embrace. They also have the option to mute and disable the camera. To find out how to train your retail team to master online selling, check out this blog post here.
Leveraging add ons
Unsurprisingly smartphones are high consideration items and most likely the customer will turn away, have a think and return if happy to make a purchase.
But what comes next is leveraging add ons. In an ordinary retail environment, pushing add ons can seem unnatural so how does your team master it online?
The Confer With app introduces ‘additions’, based on past purchases to advise both the team member and customer on what is a suitable add on. In the case of mobiles, it could be a phone case, smartwatch or insurance.
Here’s more on how your team can drive add ons:
- Alternatives: showcase different products in a variety of colours and styles
- Product specifications: show specs, images and videos relating to the product
A full deal flow for each product can be created based on customer interactions and needs identification. This leads to a substantial increase in average order value and helps scale high margin products.
Making it easy to buy, then and there
Confer With have developed a patent-pending virtual shared basket technology that allows both the shopper and expert to add items to the virtual shopping basket.
Once the sale begins to close, the expert can showcase the shopping basket, ensuring both are on common grounds. Once confirm and the video call is over, all items carry over to the purchase page.
Recap
Mobile phone retailers have relied on their own experts to advise customers for years. But consumer purchasing patterns are chasing – they are increasingly going online.
Video allows face-to-face connections between shoppers and mobile phone experts to continue in an online environment leading to conversion rates that approach retail levels.
Shopping for furniture requires an exhaustive checklist. What is your style? What are the required dimensions? Materials, eco-friendly, construction quality…the list goes on.
Confer With provides the opportunity for a shopper to talk to an expert who knows the answer to these questions. They can recommend furniture for the entire house, or simply an armchair that suits your style. The best experts can be matched with high-potential customers. More importantly, appointments can be made when someone isn’t available right away.
Interested in a demo for the mobile phone use case?
Schedule a no obligation demo to find out more. We are happy to to help you make the first steps in transforming your eCommerce platform.
