Customer Journeys with Will Laurenson

Customer Journeys with Will Laurenson transcript powered by Sonix—easily convert your audio to text with Sonix.

Download the "Customer Journeys with Will Laurenson audio file directly. This mp3 was automatically transcribed by Sonix (https://sonix.ai).

Customer Journeys with Will Laurenson was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best audio automated transcription service in 2020. Our automated transcription algorithms works with many of the popular audio file formats.

Andrew:
Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the clientside. If you're looking to generate more business using digital channels, strengthen your brand, or perhaps you're looking to learn about new approaches or techniques that you can apply in your role. Then you're in the right place. I'm your host Andrew Armitage and we're back today with another guest interview on something that is particularly important for e-commerce site owners, but actually can affect any Website where you need your visitors to take an action. This might be signing up to something, downloading a white paper or buying online. Whatever it is, the journey that that person goes through is critically important and be can a key driver of loyalty that can be one and lost based on ease of use. Now, e-commerce has been in the news quite a bit over the lockdown period and as shoppers have been unable to leave home, we've seen two extremes. And no doubt data collected over the last few months will highlight which sites have performed well and those that might need more investment to better connect with their audiences. Amazon has always been an easy to use site. The convenience factor has been high and it's a trustworthy brand. Things like the one click checkout, free delivery for prime members lists and gift options all make it a seamless shopping experience. On the other hand, the fashion retailer Primark, who don't have their own online store, saw their monthly revenue plummet from 650 million pounds to literally zero.

Andrew:
So e-commerce is clearly going to see renewed growth and become a priority area for many businesses, while providing a positive customer experience will be key to achieving success. Now, the customer journey is critical and of course, it doesn't just apply online. It's all about how easy your company is to deal with whenever I might want to interact with you. Is there a live chat that can help me if I have a question about the delivery area? Do emails come from an individual or a no reply email address? If you're offline, are your salespeople actively helping the customer to buy or do they just direct them towards the items they might have been looking for? Well, to talk about these things, my guest today is Will Laurenson. Will is the founder of Monkey Blocks and has spent the last nine years growing a range of businesses from early stage startups through to billion dollar publicly listed companies. He specializes in customer journeys using a mix of conversion rate optimization and marketing automation to improve customer retention and lifetime value. So welcome to the show Will, why don't you start by telling our listeners a little bit about yourself and your background.

Will:
Yes. Cool. So. Yeah. Will Laurenson I'm the founder of Monkey Blocks, it's just my own consultancy. I've been working in marketing for about 9, 10 years now for starting off in a bunch of startups did a bit of sales as well right at the start. But my focus has always been on kind of the customer experience side, the customer journey not so focused on acquisition and running ads. You know, I've kind of obviously touched on those those channels a bit. But my specialty has always been commercial optimization, you know, giving people the best experience on site that we can and the CRM marketing automation side after that. So, you know, keep people coming back, make sure they get the right information, the right content and, you know, ideally trying not to rely on discounts too much.

Andrew:
Yeah, yeah. I think the retailers would probably thank you for that at this stage as well. It's you know, I think often you have to create that incentive to buy sometimes, but you can't afford just to discount everything. Otherwise, it lose its incentive in itself doesn't actually. People can wait for those discounts to kick in. They hold off buying and all sorts of things. Your trimming profit margins as well Of course.

Will:
Yes. Exactly. You know, people start thinking, well, there's no point. You know, I find, oh, I want to buy this product from this website. I know they're going to e-mail me a deal in a few days, so I'll just wait for that.

Andrew:
So you you touch on acquisition. Acquisition is really the point of bringing people to the site. You're not so much interested in that you're more concerned with what they do when they get there. Is that right?

Will:
Yeah, exactly. So, obviously I work with acquisition teams to make sure the messaging is is consistent because, you know, they could get fantastic click through rates, get loads of engagement on ads and stuff but if their ad doesn't actually know what's on the site it's pointless. And likewise, if they find that particular messaging is working well, then we should be thinking about how we get that messaging on the website, on product pages and even in emails and things later, even customer service and areas like that, the feedback should be going both ways.

Andrew:
Yeah. So customer journeys is something that you you've mentioned in your bio. It's something, obviously, that you specialize in, particularly with e-commerce sites by the sounds of it. Let's just define what do we mean by a customer journey?

Will:
So for me, it's the journey the customer goes on with your brand from the moment they first experience it. That's, you know, it could be as seeing an ad for the first time. Could be seeing you on the news or just in an article or could be a friend mentioning it. So, that first contact they have, through to the point where ideally they're a loyal, engaged customer who is telling all their friends and colleagues about you, sharing their referral link or whatever.

Andrew:
And I guess that customer journey is, it's certainly changed shape over over recent years. I mean, Google have done some some interesting articles around intent, among others, of course. But that journey is going to vary so much based on environment and context and an intention that people have. So how is that changing at the moment? Are we seeing much more touch points on mobile? I can only think that we are and certainly given lockdown there must be a heck of a lot more touch points in digital channels, people not necessarily having those face to face or even voice to voice conversations so much now.

Will:
Yeah, exactly. So there's lots more mobile, mobiles doing fantastic. I've got a couple of clients and they get about 70 percent of their traffic on mobile now, which is is just insane. And know you haven't got that in-store experience anymore. You know, you can't even go window shopping as much anymore, really. But I think, you know, in the last couple years, maybe the last few years, we've been seeing more and more focus on social proof, you know, referrals, reviews, word of mouth and brand values. And I think well actually it's kind of going in two directions, really. You've either got to go down the maybe cheaper products, super easy to use, super convenient, the brand is not going to try and create a relationship with you. They just want to make it as easy as possible to purchase. And that's, you know, for example, Amazon. And then on the other hand, you've got the brands which are, may be significantly more expensive, but they have the values, they have a really interesting, exciting brand that people want to almost like get to know on a one to one basis. And if you kind of sit in the middle, you're going to lose. You know, you're either going to compete with the cheaper, cheaper, easier people or you're competing with people who have got that amazing message and voice. And, you know, how are you going to stand out against that?

Andrew:
And I guess a perfect example of what you're talking about, there would be someone like Apple.

Will:
Yes. Yeah, exactly. Apple, you know, more expensive than Samsung, but they've got that, you know, that core loyal customer base who, you know, queue up outside their stores for hours to get the new phone or whatever.

Andrew:
So what is it that's I mean, experience in some cases, it's become the new loyalty, hasn't it? And that's, I guess, really where you see it in terms of advising businesses and potentially agencies in terms of how they can create that really positive experience. What are what are the key things that businesses can do as they look to create such a good experience? I mean, brand values must come into it, obviously ease of use and how user friendly their platforms are. But maybe other other touch points that they have as well. What are the key things that businesses really need to sit up and take note of now as far as that customer journey goes?

Will:
Yeah, I think ease of use is important. You know, you've got to be able to you know, if you go into a fashion website, for example, you've probably, unless you've clicked on their Facebook ad, you've probably got something in mind you're looking to purchase, you know, maybe a t shirt, jacket, whatever. So it needs to be really easy for that person to go and find that product or at least browse that category. But it doesn't, it doesn't have to be easy finding a product it has to be ease of doing whatever they've come to your Website to do. And and one thing that I always stress is unsubscribing from, you know, from marketing. If you make it difficult, you're only going to make things worse for you. They might complain to your customer service. They'll probably complain to their friends. They might complain on social media. You don't have to make it difficult. But you can kind of guide people in a way which gets a bit more of a positive result for you. And you might actually be able to turn to unsubscribe into a, you know, a pause on their emails or they might decide, well, I'm going to unsubscribe from messages related to events because I don't care about your events but keep sending me recommended products. So that's where, you know, that preference center and things come in. But if you know there's a brand that I keep getting emailed by, I can't unsubscribe because I don't know my log in details for that e-mail address and they force you to log in. So they just go to the junk box and hopefully eventually they'll stop coming into my inbox because my e-mail provider will finally recognise that I keep throwing them in the junk.

Will:
So for me, yes, everything should be as easy as possible. Customer service should be really knowledgeable, really well-trained, and should be able to help you as quickly as possible. But on the customer service side, by speed I don't mean they should be responding to your ticket within 30 minutes. I mean, they should be able to resolve your issue as quickly as possible. So if that means waiting a few hours for a response by e-mail but they come back and just give you everything you need.

Andrew:
It's right, first time.

Will:
I think that's better than going back and forth 30 times on email, but getting it done within an hour.

Andrew:
I 100 percent agree there's nothing more annoying than sort of having to fiddle around, particularly if you're on your phone and you kind of go through this motion in the back of your mind, do they not just get it. Why is this so complicated? So, yeah, I think you're absolutely right.

Will:
But even so, one example is I just renewed my phone contract. And I had to go through so much on on its live chat. And fortunately, it was live chat, which actually does make it quicker and more convenient for me. As it obviously pings me every time there's a message. So I don't even have to pay attention all the time. But it was the fact that three or four times I had to say yes, new contract is great, let's go with that. And then he asked me to confirm each term and condition individually. And it was all these things that I thought, I feel like you're making this more complicated than it should be. And maybe it's compliance stuff that they have to do. Yeah, I just felt that they slowed it down and it got to the point where I had to say to the guy, look, I actually have to go in a minute. Can we just finish, please?

Andrew:
Do you think that's an effort to be more accessible, be more visible to customers? But the company behind that has really applied the wrong tool for the job and that being able to try and offer a renewal on a phone contract through live chat, It's just taking it one step too far.

Will:
My guess is that they probably treat it as a quite similar live chat to any other live chat, in that they the guy probably had three or four conversations going at the same time. And so there's a delay for me because. Copy paste something into me. And then go to the next chat and then the next chat in the next hour. So if I'm actually sat there and respond immediately. I still have to wait for this guy, to complete two, three, four other chats and just individual messages before he comes back to me. And obviously, if I'm there saying, you know, fine, do that with your complaining customers. People want to cancel. All right. I hate that. Fine, the canceling you can take a little bit longer. But for someone who's just saying yes, cool contract agreed. Done. Let's go. And just keep me on the line. There's actually you know because I was I was still on the fence about it. It just turned out quite a bit cheaper. They gave me a cheaper renewal.I was on the fence about it.

Andrew:
So you could have got to the stage where you thought you thought, you know what I've had enough of this. I'm going somewhere else.

Will:
Well, there was another, you know, another provider, because I do have a problem with my current provider, but it's just not bad enough for me to actually leave.

Will:
But, you know, I was you know, this other provider had been recommended. So I thought, well, you know, I have got that tab open. I could maybe go and do that.

Andrew:
It's only next door.

Will:
I did think a couple of times actually. Do I want to switch? There's still an opportunity. Do I still want to do it? I mean, I didn't.

Andrew:
So it's just circling back to an e-mail that's an interesting one to where you talk about people unsubscribing. I went through a period where I was capturing screenshots of companies unsubscribe pages. What sort of thing was happening when I hit the unsubscribe link. And, yeah, I'm still amazed. I did one the other day, unsubscribe from a newsletter from a well-known housewares brand and it just went to a page that said you've been unsubscribed, unbranded, completely plain and okay, it achieved that point of I wanted to unsubscribe. It was easy to do and that was it there was no fluff about it. But but I often think those unsubscribe pages are good opportunities to just leave some sort of lingering memory or pleasant parting shots rather than just a a fairly ugly white page that says, thanks very much, goodbye. Are there areas that you find companies often overlook when it comes to the customer journey and how people interact at various touch points?

Will:
I mean, kind of similar to that. You know, kind of I guess the assumption is if they want to unsubscribe, just do it. Kind of miss that opportunity to say, well, you can unsubscribe from this email, but do you still want these ones? So why are you unsubscribing or, just some funny message. You know, I think there's a newsletter, a marketing newsletter and when you unsubscribe, it asks you, you get the choice to click on two images of the employee you want to fire because because obviously they've done such a terrible job, because to make you unsubscribe. It just makes you reconsider and unfortunately I just hadn't read the newsletter so long. I've obviously remembered that, you don't remember the brands that just go, yeah cool I'm done. Thanks. And you occasionally remember the ones that say right, cool we'll action that in the next 28 days, which is.

Andrew:
Completely unreasonable these days, there's absolutely no need for it.

Will:
It's the legal right. But to say it when you know it's done immediately. You know, it's not a request that has to be done manually, anyway I feel like I'm ranting. I think loyalty schemes for me are an area that is done really badly by alot of brands. Almost every loyalty scheme you see is something like for every pound you spend, you get points. And when you get 500 points, we'll give you a 10 percent voucher.

Andrew:
And they always feel such a long way off, don't they?

Will:
Yeah. I mean, so if I, if I like your brand enough to get to that 500 points, I'm probably spending the money anyway. So this loyalty scheme hasn't incentivized me to purchase, but it has given me a discount. Actually, what it should be saying is, you know, tell us your date of birth so we can give you reward you on your birthday. Follow us on social media channels, for every friend you refer we'll give you points, for every event you turn up to in person we'll give you some points. All these things, you're not going to turn up to an event just to get 50 points. You're going to turn up to an event because you actually want to go. But they can just, you know, reward you for that.

Andrew:
So it's just thinking a bit more out of the box really, isn't it? I suppose from some of the old, more traditional loyalty models that have existed in the past, looking at where people interact with you, how well they're likely to know you and what value they want to get back from you as a as a customer that will further build that loyalty.

Will:
Yeah, exactly. You know, it's building loyalty and engagement. That's the whole idea of a loyalty scheme. You know, I talked about this on my podcast, actually with a company called three radical, and the coffee, you know, the coffee stamps that you get. And it's normally, you know, when you get 10 stamps or five stamps, whatever, your next one is free. But they are giving you the free coffee that you pay for anyway. So just how is that driving loyalty?

Andrew:
Yeah, you'd rather a piece of cake to go with it.

Will:
Yeah. Well, you might not rather. But they could say well get 50 percent off a piece of food or just 50 percent off food and then you're going to go in the next day, you're going to buy your coffee and you're going to buy something else.

Andrew:
So let's let's move on a little bit and talk about what happens after the acquisition, because you've got to think about how the customer has come to you, what sort of context, what sort of environment there might be and once they get to site. So, should people be focusing on sort of handling visitors in a slightly different way, depending on how they're acquired? I know you said you don't really talk too much about I or get involved with with the actual acquisition itself. But, you know, if people are coming to the Website, they've come from a Facebook ad, they've come from an organic link or they've come for a paid search ad. Do we need to sort of adapt our Websites and sort of make a few considerations for how we're interrupting peoplein their flow of what they were doing, to make it easier for them to engage?

Will:
I think it does depend on the type of business. If you're just you know, I say just, if you're an e-commerce site in a fashion or jewelry or whatever. I don't think there's much you can really do, or it's worth doing it to personalize the experience based on which channel they've come through. If you can you know, you could put some effort into tailoring some messaging or something, you know, have it have a banner appear. You know, if they've come through an affiliate Website, for example, just add a little banner to the top of the screen saying, by the way, here's the code that you've clicked through. Just to make sure it's always available for them. I don't know if you give them a specific link to click for a specific reason. It might be through organic Instagram or whatever. You could personalize it slightly for that. But otherwise, I don't really think you need to, if someone's clicking through a PPC ad ideally you'd have them land on the products because they've probably searched for a product or for a category as long as you landing them in the right place. I'd say that's almost as far as you really need to go, unless you're willing to really, really invest and then you can probably do some really cool stuff. But is it really going to give you a ROI? So, I'd say yeah, if you're advertising a specific product, make sure you land them on that product. Well, they're are quite a few annoying things, but there's probably not much more annoying than clicking on an advert for a specific product. And then just landed on a home page.

Andrew:
Yeah, yeah. Because you've still got to do the work. They're making you work to find that product then aren't they?

Will:
Yeah. I've then got to go scrolling through category pages or search whatever. So, yeah, for e-commerce sites I don't think there's much you need to do. For some kind of membership base and sign up, you know, sites where you need to sign up. So I worked for a gambling company for a little while, and we, the SEO pages were built in a way which would detect whether you had the member ID already. And so if you do it would send you through to the home page, if it couldn't detect the the I.D, it would send you to an SEO landing page.

Andrew:
Right. Where presumably they would capture you to try and sign up.

Will:
Yeah, it was more like a dedicated sales page. Whereas if they thought, well, we know you've you know, you've got a cookie on your on your laptop or whatever, so we know you've already signed up so we're just gonna send you straight to the home page. You can log in and get on with it. And, you know, that was quite good for them, but, you know not many cases where where you really need to do that.

Andrew:
Okay. And just there you were talking about search engines. They seem to be particularly Google. Let's be honest, that's really what we're talking about when we talk about search engines, and how are they disrupting the customer journey, because there seems to be a growing trend for them to try and display more information in the search results before you've even got through, perhaps to the Website and you might even not need to click through to the site that you you might originally have tried to get to. Are search engines disrupting the customer journey are you finding?

Will:
I don't think in a bad way. It kind it depends what your business is a little bit. If you are a information based Website, then obviously it's frustrating if Google just presents your content on the front page. So if you, you know, when you type in a question, quite often like. Why is the touchscreen on my iPad not working? And quite often, you know, the first result will actually tell you the first five steps you have to take to try and fix that problem. And I managed to, I was able to fix my problem without actually having to click into the article, which means that business is losing out on ad revenue from me while landing on that page, but also browsing. So for them, it's not so great. But other businesses, you know, you know flights, you can book through Google now, can't you? Or do they actually link you to the. Are they just a search engine?

Andrew:
I think they I think they take you through to sites like Skyscanner to then place the final booking. I don't know if you can actually book directly. And I guess certain airlines like like Ryanair probably, probably limit the ability to book direct. So, so you're forced onto their site. But it's a little while since I booked a flight.

Will:
Yes. Same. Yes. So, in cases like that. I think obviously the danger for the brand is that, if I type in flights London to New York, Google's going to give me the options and Google is kind of going to dictate which website I go to to make my booking. Which is obviously then taken away from Norwegian Air or British Airways or Virgin or Skyscanner. But, you know, if you know about Skyscanner, you probably go direct to it. I think so.

Andrew:
Yeah, I suppose it's where, where things are, more commoditised, where if if really if you're booking that flight and your priority is just well I want to get to New York. You're really going to be looking down at the cheapest price and you're probably not bothered about the experience on board or how you book your ticket. Whereas I don't know, let's say you're going off for a particular celebration, you're going to a friend's wedding or something like that. You might want to make it a bit more of an experience. I guess you're you're less likely to be influenced by that. And potentially you then go to book direct or you look at other options that might not necessarily be presented on Google flights.

Will:
Yeah, I think yeah it does depend on what the customer's doing, doesn't it. Yeah. If I'm flying to New York, I've probably got one or two airlines I'll check straightaway. And then Norwegian Air I think is the one that always pops up as a, they seem to they seem to do all the awesome long haul flights, really cheap. I thought they were short haul, but they fly every where don't they? But if I'm if I'm just saying, I just want to go away to Italy or something for a weekend or somewhere in Europe, then I'll go to Skyscanner. And yeah, I will probably just pick whatever's cheapest or cheapest and most convenient.

Andrew:
Ok. So how how can you if if I'm running an e-commerce site and I want to think about the customer journey that people are having and whether that's working for us, where might I look to to try and understand what that customer journey looks like? How might I actually draw some dots between sort of different touch points that I might be able to work out fairly easily? But how can I work out what that journey might look like?

Will:
So the first place that I go to Google Analytics, you can, you can get very, very far with your business with just Google analytics. You know, set up enhanced, enhanced e-commerce tracking. And then you can you know, you can see which pages people are landing on, how long they're spending on pages and stuff. The enhanced e-commerce tells you, you know, how many sessions are there on the site, how many a result in a product view, how many result in an add to cart. How many go to check out, how many complete check out.

Andrew:
So in effect, you can measure almost a conversion rate at every step of that point, every step of that journey, whether they move on to the next level or the next stage in the process.

Will:
Yeah. So it's you know, it's obviously total sessions still. So you're not getting that individual customer view, which you might want to start breaking down with other tools. But, you know, it's really good for looking at that and saying, you know, because you can easily just benchmark. You can, you can guess the benchmark data off Google. I think it's is a really good site. I think it's a little data. I think, I've looked at them a few times that they're always number one on Google with a particular benchmark data. It's great.

Andrew:
Okay, well, we'll look that up and put a link in the show notes.

Will:
Yeah, definitely. think it's worth it. But yes, you can see, you get an idea of how many sessions result in product view. How many result in a add to cart. Then you can kind of get an idea of where the weakness in the site is. And I think the important thing for people to realize is, the biggest drop off is going to be sessions' to a product view, unless unless you do almost all your adveritisng to specific products, of course, because then everyone's gonna be seeing the products. You can have a massive drop off there. But what you need to realize is the intent at that stage is really low still. So you can optimise there, but actually, it's not where I would start, I would start by saying, let's look at the checkout. The people who get to the checkout are people have found the products they want. They've added them to the basket. They've visited the checkout. And for some reason, they haven't paid.

Andrew:
Yeah, so the intent is much higher, is what you're saying basically.

Will:
Yeah. I mean, why aren't 100 percent of those people purchasing? What's getting in the way? Have you put a shipping cost in front of them or whatever? And then I would work back through and then as a part of doing that, I would then look at tools like Hotjar. Okay, so look at you know, heat maps, session recordings, click maps, things like let's to get an idea of how people are interacting with each page, because that's what Google doesn't really, can't really tell you.

Andrew:
Yeah, it's a bit of that experience analytics rather than just the quantitative analytics, I suppose, isn't it then.

Will:
Yeah. So if you find out that 100 percent of people exit your website on product pages. You must be thinking, right? We've got a serious issue on our product pages. Then use heat maps to find out why, or what's going on. Heat maps might tell you loads of people are clicking add to cart, and then use session recordings. Or you'd then go and play with the website itself and you might find out actually by clicking add to cart that you're linking them away to a different Web site.

Andrew:
Yeah, but it can make it very obvious, can't it, just by watching a few video playbacks where there could be a gaping hole, basically.

Will:
Yeah. You see, everyone's doing the same behavior. So let's do it ourselves. Now, as a company, let's get loads of people to walk through this and everyone's going to go I see what happens here. And it won't just be you know, I say it's an extreme example. It might actually be the case that the way you're tracking sets up and the way your cart and everything is set up, your cart is actually on a effectively a separate domain. And that could just be the issue. And therefore you've actually just got a trucking issue. But you kind of figure, figure all these out from looking through Google Analytics, identifying where you think the priority weak point is and then saying, right, well, what are we doing at this stage? Run through the site yourself obviously, and try and figure out what is wrong.

Andrew:
Yeah, I think that's such a key thing. And the number of people that we will speak to and you ask them if they've actually been through the checkout process themselves and the answer's no. And it shocks me because that that's the easiest way, surely just to go through that process yourself. Just remind yourself of what you might encounter during that process. Is it easy for you because it is not easy for you or there's bits and pieces that you might think. Well, it doesn't tell me what I could expect next. It's given me an order number, but it hasn't reminded me about the shipping option I've chosen or or if I've got a customer service issue, what to do. Those are the sorts of things that are actually really easy things that people could do themselves, aren't they?

Will:
Yeah, I mean, all you've got to think is like write down the five top things that make you abandon your cart and another website and just make sure you're not doing that on your own.

Andrew:
Right. That's a really simple activity for people to do isn't it?

And there's also things like, you know, I looked at one site the other week. They offer free shipping on everything. However. I'm pretty sure the only way to find that out is actually by going to the shipping and returns page.

Andrew:
Right. It was completely disruptive as part of that flow, isn't it? It's almost like you're going in a straight line. Then you got to hop onto a different track and then hop back in.

Will:
Yeah, I mean, you have to, but it's the only place that is the only place that mentioned that. So obviously, when you when you're about to complete the purchase, you will see that there is no shipping fee, but it's just not being confirmed at the other point, whereas most sites will say spend fifty pounds and get free shipping and with some, you know, with widgets, or you could probably build it and you can say, well, you've spent 25 pounds so spent 25 more to get free free shipping and spend 10 pounds more. Now you've qualified for free shipping and just reinforce that message the whole time. Whereas you know this business that thinks, well, we offer ship free shipping. So that's not an issue. But if you're not telling the customer you do that then it is an issue because they don't know.

Andrew:
It doesn't become an added value benefit of shopping at that particular retailer, does it? Yeah.

Will:
And it is one of those important things that people consider. You know, people will spend fifteen pounds to avoid a 3.99 shipping fee.

Andrew:
Yes. But nobody likes a surprise, do they? Particularly, you know, they got right through. And as you say, they've gone through the process of adding a product to the basket. They might have put their address details in. The last thing he wants is then to present them with a surprise that they weren't expecting. And that must be one of the biggest killers of conversion rates.

Will:
Yeah, yeah, I think so. Obviously, apart from a broken site. Suddenly putting a shipping fee in front of someone is, it has got to be one of the worst things you can do.

Andrew:
So we're about out of time. That's been a useful conversation to talk about some of the places that people can improve that customer experience and that journey as they go particularly through through checkouts. Where could people follow up with you and learn a little bit more about what you do and your approach.

Will:
So best place is properly LinkedIn and actually just find me Will Laurenson. I'm on there a lot, I post a lot of content. Always respond to messages, or email me will@monkeyblocks.com. And I also run the customers who click podcast. I like this one I interview various marketers on different topics and actually if you get in touch, I will do a quick video review of your website just to highlight a few customer journey issues that I think you might be able to to tweak and improve.

Andrew:
Excellent. Sounds good. Well, thanks very much for joining us Will. Really appreciate you taking the time to spend your afternoon on the Clientside podcast. Yeah, we'll put those links to your website in the show notes. And hope you have a great weekend.

Will:
Brilliant. You too. Thanks for having me.

Andrew:
Thanks Will for joining me today on the Client podcast. We'll add those links he mentioned into the show notes, which you'll find for the episode by heading over to Adigital.agency/podcast. And Will made a really good point about how ease of use on a Website is important. But it's not good enough just for an e-commerce site to make it easy to buy products. It has to be easy to use for whatever the customer wants to do. And clearly that can include the less glamorous things like delivery queries, complaints or returns. So understanding all of the intents and feelings that your customer might have towards you at those points is vital if you're going to find your company easy to deal with, building empathy maps or personas can be useful here as you consider how and what people might think see, say and do in different scenarios. And of course, don't forget, these journeys can happen in physical spaces, maybe even cross over sometimes as well starting on one channel and ending on another. Ultimately it's this journey that can have a huge impact on your brand and whether you've earned your customers launch and support as they share their experience with friends, leave reviews and post on social media.

Andrew:
Something I'd always advocate for anyone running or managing an online shop is to go through the shopping experience yourself every now and again. Not only can this highlight any problems that could be impacting on your sales, but it's always good to put yourself in the shoes of your customers and make sure you're happy with the process, the messaging, the tone of voice that you're on brand and leaving a positive feeling in your customers minds. So if you're looking to accelerate your e-commerce activity, please do get in touch. We've had a lot of experience here at A digital working on e-commerce projects to just drop an email through to hello@adigital and we can take it from there. So thanks again for joining me today. Hope you've enjoyed the show. Take care. Stay safe. I'll be back in the next couple of weeks where I'll be joined by another guest and we'll be talking all about search engine optimization. So I hope you can join me then. See you next time.

Andrew:
Thank you again for checking out today's episode of the ClientSide podcast. I really hope you found it a useful conversation with some actionable steps that you can apply in your business, if you can spare just a few minutes of your time then please do look us up on Apple podcast. Search for the clientside podcast by A Aigital and leave a five star rating. And if you can leave a quick review. I'd love to hear your feedback and would really appreciate your support. If you're interested in learning more about A Digital and how we might be able to work together to get across to our website, at adigital.agency and complete our online scorecard so you can benchmark your own digital performance. You'll get to free personalized report sent to you by email and I can learn more about you and your business and the particular challenges you're facing. We can then follow this up with a free call to map out your priorities, either on the phone or over Zoom with absolutely no obligation. Thank you so much, everybody. I'm really grateful for you tuning in. If you have any comments about this episode or any previous episodes of the Clientside podcast, then drop me a line to Andrew@adigital.co.uk or head across to our website at adigital.Agency/clientside. See you on the next show. Cheers.

Automatically convert your audio files to text with Sonix. Sonix is the best online, automated transcription service.

Sonix uses cutting-edge artificial intelligence to convert your mp3 files to text.

Create better transcripts with online automated transcription. Sonix converts audio to text in minutes, not hours. Rapid advancements in speech-to-text technology has made transcription a whole lot easier. Automated transcription can quickly transcribe your skype calls. All of your remote meetings will be better indexed with a Sonix transcript. More computing power makes audio-to-text faster and more efficient. Do you have a podcast? Here's how to automatically transcribe your podcasts with Sonix. Sonix takes transcription to a whole new level. Sometimes you don't have super fancy audio recording equipment around; here's how you can record better audio on your phone.

Sonix uses cutting-edge artificial intelligence to convert your mp3 files to text.

Sonix is the best online audio transcription software in 2020—it's fast, easy, and affordable.

If you are looking for a great way to convert your audio to text, try Sonix today.