Other customers started their own Cyber Monday on Black Friday and decided to stay home and shop online. Armed with their own lists, and easy access to their social networks, they shopped and Tweeted heavily on both days.

Tealeaf, using advanced sentiment analysis from Crimson Hexagon, took a look at the tweets which occurred between Black Friday and Cyber Monday about the online customer experience, and here is what they found:

• Twitter conversations about online shopping increased 256 percent on Black Friday and 202 percent on Cyber Monday compared to a regular shopping day.
• Shoppers were not shy about sharing their victories and failures as they strived to beat the in-store crowds.
• 38% of customers were delighted with the online shopping experience.
• However, nearly a quarter, 24%, of online shoppers cursed and complained their way through the process.
• 50% of the frustrated shoppers tweeted about the specific issues they were having, such as website errors, out of stocks and other classic online customer struggles.

Here are some examples of the frustrated tweets:

· well, so much for THAT christmas present. couldn’t even figure out how to order. Thanks. *rolling eyes*.”

· Why doesn’t the website work!!!! Need to buy my ticket home. -___-

· I was going to go nuts buying lots of stuff on the website, but it’s been down all day – lots of angry comments on their facebook

· I tried! website won’t let me checkout! I keep hitting refresh!

· I would love to buy the album, but there are issues with the website

I spoke with Geoff Galat, VP of Worldwide Marketing for Tealeaf, to learn more about the social media report they conducted. Geoff shared with me that these numbers are similar to the percentage of customers that experience online shopping frustrations on non-holiday occasions; there were just a lot more of them over the last weekend. More importantly, we discussed how the expressed experience of online shoppers might affect the perceptions of others. In a previous customer survey, Tealeaf found that 51% of online shoppers said social media had influenced their online transactions. When they read a negative comment online, 74% of consumers said it influenced their likelihood to do business with that company; 56% said they would avoid a particular vendor after reading bad reviews. Yikes!

On the other hand, 52% of consumers said they would use a particular vendor after reading good reviews.

What is the key takeaway? Social media has made the consumer online shopping experience one that everyone shares, at least vicariously. The good, the bad, and the ugly are all out in the open for anyone to read – and it is impacting their perceptions and potentially their behaviors.

It is important for companies doing business online to take a closer look at their online experience – not just for purchasing, but across the entire customer lifecycle. Each of these little website experiences might not look like much to the enterprise, but when they add up over time and across many customers, they could result in “death by 1000 cuts” for the website, and for the customer base. Companies need to understand all aspects of their online customer experience, including how customers use the site as well as customer expectations (which could be set by other great websites!), in order to make sure they are delivering the best service to prospects and customers over the holidays – and every day.

What are you seeing happen in the online customer experience that is best – or worst – practice? Please share some thoughts in the comments.

To see the Tealeaf presentation of the report, go here.

(Photo credit: YanC)

I was inspired to write this by a post at Jim Kukral’s blog about how one bad salesperson can destroy your brand.  In a video post, Jim shares his sad story about a salesperson who didn’t seem to understand Jim’s need to shop around before committing for a big-ticket item (you’ll have to go over and watch the video to find out which store he dissed and which one he ended up buying from).  Here’s an idea of what Jim said:

“I don’t care what discounts or coupons they may have in the future. One employee, with one horrible sales tactic and personality destroyed their brand for me. That’s how easy it is to do.”

What is Sales Focused On?

Take a look at your sales force.  It may be a crew of sales people staffing a retail store.  It may be your channel partners working to incorporate your product or service into their offering.  It may just be one person and a phone.  Regardless of how your sales team looks, most likely they are focused on making sales, as they should be.  But what are they focused on when they are trying to make their numbers?

When I worked as director of marketing for HP in the UK and Ireland, we had several sales teams, each targetting different groups of enterprise (commercial) customers.  As marketing, we partnered closely with sales to help them understand the needs of the various customer groups and how they differed.  The most successful sales teams were those who used their understanding of those customer needs to change their sales approach to one that was totally focused on helping make it easier to do business with HP for that customer.

In Jim’s example of a salesperson that turned him off, the salesperson was more focused on pressuring Jim to get an immediate sale than he was on helping Jim meet his needs.  This self-focus, rather than customer-focus, drove Jim away, and the sale was made elsewhere.  I had a similar experience last summer when we were trying to buy a new truck, but this one was a poor experience with the dealership itself (and an unmotivated, yet professional, salesperson).  The dealership and sales team seemed to be more focused on what was convenient for them rather then what was convenient for a potential buyer.

Do You Want My Business?

Times are tough.  Competition is fierce.  Customers have high expectations.  With all of these factors in play, businesses can’t afford to treat their customers with anything other than respect and great customer service.  If you aren’t sure whether you want your customer’s business or not, take a step back and look at it from their perspective.  Here are some tips to make sure you are ready to meet and exceed customer expectations.

• Hire a mystery shopper to check out all aspects of your customer’s buying experience.  Notice I didn’t say your sales experience; again, you need to look at it from the other side of the table!

• Talk to customers who have purchased from you recently.  How was their experience?  Were their needs met?  What could have been better?  You might not want to hear all the answers, but if customers aren’t happy, they probably won’t keep buying from you.  Even worse, they could say bad things about you to others.

• Get your best customers to come in and meet with you and your sales team (or do it via phone conference).  It gets sales teams all jazzed up to hear positive feedback from customers, and you will get ideas on what works in your customer’s buying experience.

• Create customer profiles of different customer groups and their needs.  Make sure your sales team understands how they are unique and how their sales approach should change in each instance.

• Train sales in WOW customer service and relationship building techniques.  Customers should be viewed as people, not transactions.

Too much to think about?  Simply put yourself in your customer’s shoes and take one step at a time.

(Photo credit: LatinPoint)