Identifying Customer Needs with Live Video Shopping

January 28, 2021

What is the Importance of Meeting Customer Needs?

Perfecting the way that the brand and their customers interact is vital to increased customer satisfaction and return rates. By prioritising customer experience through video commerce and exchange, it saves the mistakes that just a simple online website makes. Brands are able to directly address the customer, their wants, needs and specific requirements. With online shopping becoming more popular by the second, lives-stream shopping allows this definition of customer needs that a simple website just cannot provide on it’s own.

Making sure companies prioritise customer’s and their needs is central to a successful business. Without customers, brand cease to create sales, and therefore sink as a result. With a shift towards customer’s, brands will see the likes of increased referrals, higher satisfaction scores and potential solutions to the holes In their company.

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What are Customer Needs?

Customer needs are what customers look for when purchasing a product or service which will vary from product to product (or service), but will be the reason why a customer will make the decision to buy – and come back. The businesses that know the most important customer needs, and meet them accordingly, have a distinct advantage over ill-defined needs or other companies.

What Are The Most Important Needs?

The needs unfortunately are personal to each brand and company. However, research has shown there is quite a clear correlation of the most important ones, and which values the customers prioritises when shopping.

When asked in a survey for PWC customers were asked, ‘when it comes to great overall customer experience, how important do you think each of the following will be in the future?’

Whilst many of these are important, it is clear there are several that come as a priority to customers generally. The obvious being efficiency, convenience, service, up-to-date technology and human interaction.

With the introduction of video e-commerce, brands have increasing opportunities to blur the lines between physical retail and online space. Not only do the brands get a better understanding of customer needs by simply asking, it also increases overall satisfaction, efficiency and a knowledgeable service.

To add confidence that the need’s of the customer will be met, retail experts are used to connect through video e-commerce. This gives them a reason to come back, again and again.

With the wave of live-stream shopping in China, brands without different online features, run the risk of losing customers.

Some Broad Examples – The Good and The Bad

The Ford Flop

The Ford Edsel That was Subject to Financial Disaster Due to Ignoring Customer Needs

With the release of their new car in 1958, the Ford Edsel was set up to be one of the most successful cars for middle-class Americans. Richard Feloni for Business Insider states: “Ford was so confident in the product that it pumped $250 million into it. But instead of starting a revolution, the company lost $350 million on the gas-guzzler, making it a great example of how not to develop and market a new product.” Feloni concludes by advising to his readers not to “let egos trump research.” John Brook’s explains that the design arrived “without even a pretence of consulting the polls.”

Despite Ford having a rather large fail in margins and listening to customer research, ford is still one of the most successful brands to this day. This shows companies a rather clear depiction of what happens if you don’t listen to customer research.

In contrast, Sainsbury’s, struck success through social media by renaming their tiger bread due to a customer request. The BBC explained that the three year-old girl’s letter stated “Why is tiger bread called tiger bread? It should be called giraffe bread.” The exchange of the letters trended across social media – several times.

Sainsbury’s released the statement, “In response to overwhelming customer feedback that our tiger bread has more resemblance to a giraffe, from today we will be changing our tiger bred to giraffe bread.”

Customer needs — Letter Written to Sainsbury’s by a Young Customer – Requesting a Change in Name, From Tiger to Giraffe Bread

customer needs and customer satisfaction — Sainsbury’s Renaming Their Tiger Bread to Giraffe Bread After Young Customer Request

Sainsbury’s has demonstrated that great customer service goes a long way on social media. It also shows the large amount of respect a company can gain from simply just listening to their customers.

The enquiry demonstrates how companies are much more likely to succeed if they centralise their customers.

Why is Customer Service So Important in Meeting Customer Needs?

Toma Kulbyte illustrates different examples of why customer experience should be at the fore-front of your brand identity. He states that “the Tempskin group found that companies that earn $1 billion annually can expect to earn, on average, an additional $700 million within 3 years of investing in customer experience.” He goes on to say they can expect to “increase revenue by $1 billion.”

To reinforce the point, 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience. The more expensive the item, the more they are willing to pay.

In a Walker study, at the end of 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as key brand differentiators. Showing that it is becoming increasingly important to invest in your customers and promote a positive brand experience, online.

How Does This Translate to Omni-Channel Brands?

Kulbyte goes on the say that there is an increased importance of multi-channel servicing with consumer experience. “Companies interact with their customers across multiple channels, which can be through forms on their website, live chat, social media and more.” He explains companies are now having to solidify their online branding. However there is an additional stressed message: that customers still expect the communication to remain the same.

One example of great customer experience is IKEA, Kulbyte says. “It’s this level of execution and result that is driving more companies to invest in the omni-channel experience.”

In a PWC report, the number of companies investing in the omni-channel experience has gone from 20% to over 80%.

Kulbyte continues “if you visit any IKEA store around the world, you will get the same experience. IKEA invests heavily in customer experience. This year alone, they’ve opened more stores, invested in its home delivery network and launched a brand-new app – all to the benefit of their customer.” He concludes by stating IKEA’s success, where they have now reached more than $40 billion worldwide.

This proves to companies that omni-channel presence gives successful e-commerce and retail. It also shows a large market for better customer service – and is now proven to profit your company to put customers in the centre of the priorities.

What is the Benefit of Using Video Commerce in the Quest of Meeting Customer Needs Online

Video commerce introduces the possibility of an increased customer focus and a heightened sale success. With the examples of showing companies failures, we hope it shows how important customer satisfaction really is to brand value.

By using live-stream shopping you are able to ask the customer specifics – what are their exact needs and wants? You can simply ask the customer what they want in much more detail, therefore a higher satisfaction rating.

Without live-stream shopping we aren’t able to ask these questions that lead to a better customer service – online simply assumes what the customer wants and needs. By using these services, companies are able to address their customers directly and consult them to achieve the best possible results/products or services.

With the sensitivity of the retail market in the current climate, COVID-19 has made sure that companies target consumer needs and satisfaction, with a lot more people relying on e-commerce to satisfy their desires.

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The Bigger Picture

Centralising your company around it’s target market is crucial to your success as a brand. It is important to target the specific needs of your customers, and what problem you, as a brand, are going to provide a solution to. The first step is putting the consumer experience central to your company’s mission – gaining knowledge from where you are going wrong is the only solution, learning what your customer needs from you as a brand. Once steps are in place to improve your customer performance, increased referrals, higher satisfaction scores and several solutions to problems you didn’t even know you had will flood in.

By integrating video shopping into companies and brand identities, we are able to see a change in the way customers experience retail online. Especially within the current climate of the pandemic, it has never been more important to ensure that companies are understanding customer’s needs in an efficient, direct, and satisfactory wa

By perfecting the way that customers interact with brands and their products, e-commerce is able to see a positive change – where consumers trust and confide in online shopping, rather than shy away from it. With online retail becoming more anchored by the day, this change towards consumer centrality is crucial for a brand’s success.

The decision is: putting your consumer’s experience central to your brand identity or fail.