Making the Customer Experience a Differentiator in Retail

Transcript of the 2021 National Retail Federation, Retail Converge session “What’s Next in Retail? One-Click Checkout, Everywhere,” sponsored by Bolt. Speakers are:<ul><li>Danny Gavin, VP and Director of Marketing, Brian Gavin Diamonds</li><li>Tina Fan, Chief Customer Officer, Bolt</li></ul>In this recording part one, Tina and Danny cover the challenges retailers like Brian Gavin Diamonds face, discover the examples of changes that Brian Gavin Diamonds implemented to overcome some of these challenges, and discuss the impact one-click checkout can have on retailers and shoppers alike.<h2>Customer Service as Stand-out Factor</h2>Tina Fan Shopper behavior and expectations have changed quite a bit and what we call “Shopper 2.0”s expectations are higher than ever. Your customers have very high expectations as is, so the demand for exceptional customer service, convenience, and ease is there. You've seen that change in consumer behavior as well as with your customers. How have you adapted your business operations to meet the demands of this new age of shoppers? And what are your biggest challenges for the business right now?Danny Gavin We started back in 1999 and even then, we set the groundwork for customer service. It's really about our diamond consultants becoming friends with those individuals, making them feel comfortable, and really making the purchasing the most memorable experience. So much so that you don't have to ask for a review afterwards, but they're dying to send you the pictures of the proposal that just happened because you're their best friend, and you made it possible. As the competition closes in and is focusing on customer service and those experiences, you must constantly reinvent yourself and keep up to make sure that you're providing that excellent experience.In addition to the competition increasing, when we started out 20 years ago or so, there weren't that many competitors. Ever since COVID arrived and people could not come to the stores, they've been forced to go online. There's always competition, but in the last year or so, that competition has doubled or tripled because even those retailers who are used to only selling in brick-and-mortar stores, now have to go online to survive. So once again, how do we stand out? How do we do a better job in that arena as well? It's about making sure that we're enriching every interaction through personalization and keeping that customer service up. Also with the products, we are always looking to innovate new patents, new cuts, new opportunities to set ourselves apart, even in the product areas.<h2>The Little Thing that Makes a Big Difference: Fraud Protection</h2>Tina Fan According to American Express, 69% of American customers would spend more on a company with better customer service and on a company they know. Another stat from MoTista that really applies to your business is that customers with an emotional relationship with a brand have a 300% higher lifetime value and will recommend the company at a rate of 70%, rather than the average rate of 40%.Brian Gavin Diamonds is an early customer of Bolt and you're known with all of the Bolt employees as our customer number 10. You've been with us from the start. What made you take that leap to try out a new solution that had a completely novel approach to ecommerce and a hyper focus on personalization? And would you do it again?Danny Gavin Right away, yes, I’m really excited to be known as customer number 10. Yes, I would do it again. Let's step back a little bit to see where Brian Gavin Diamonds and the Bolt relationship started.We're selling very high-end items and our average order value is really high. It's not in the hundreds, but thousands of dollars. And therefore, to us, fraud detection is extremely important. In the early days, before Bolt, what fraud detection meant to us was literally looking at the purchases, where they were coming from, and seeing that, oh, people don't usually order that type of diamond online, it must be something fraudulent. We’d be reaching out to the customers, especially internationally because we wouldn't do credit card payments internationally. It was a very manual process and hectic, so then we moved on to another solution who just provided fraud detection. But in that case, it was like a flagging system, like “this is most probably a good one,” “this is definitely a bad one” and then there's ones in the middle where it's kind of your job to take that risk. So, it still was that burden of having to worry about every single sale because if you got a couple chargebacks, a couple of fraudulent sales, it would add up to thousands of dollars.It was the Bolt CEO, Ryan Breslow, who reached out to us, and said, hey, I've got this cool new product, I would love to see if you guys would be interested. Brian Gavin Diamonds in general has always jumped on the bandwagon to new opportunities, even if they haven’t been proven in the market. But remember, at that point in time some of the founders of Bolt had PayPal experience. They were coming from a legit place. The offer at that time was not the same as it is right now, because the current offering that Bolt provides is a lot more robust. Back then, it was a combination of an amazing fraud detection software, where we wouldn't have to worry about anything because it was all covered for us and this one-click checkout. I'm getting the advantage of the shopping cart experience, reducing the friction, and having people check out quickly. It was an amazing combination. Why not try it out?The other thing that I love to tell people is the cool thing about Bolt is that a person only needs to add in their shipping address, and not their billing address. This means that Bolt is so confident in their software and that really was where it started.<h2>A Win-Win Situation: A Mutually Beneficial Partnership with Bolt</h2>Tina Fan Bolt's continued to innovate, and you also have a relationship with many members at Bolt. How would you describe the customer experience, and that partnership?Danny Gavin The cool part is, we started from the top and built a relationship with the CEO. Ryan really made sure that experience that he had with me funneled down throughout the whole organization. As the organization grows, things change. But there's always been that personalized experience when we've had challenges. Bolt has been there to help us. When new innovations come along, they're proactively letting us know what's happening. We feel like Bolt is an extension of our team. It's just been an absolute pleasure. Sometimes when you bring on a certain software as a service, it's good but it's like a support queue. You feel like it's a pain to get a hold of anyone. But, Bolt cares about the customer service side of things as much as they do the software.It's actually a pretty good relationship, because at Brian Gavin Diamonds that’s what we care about. We like to choose partners who care about that too. It's not just about “sign up for our service and get going,” but being involved and making sure that everything's going okay, because it's not always perfect. Especially when you're dealing with complicated ecommerce systems. Bolt has always been there.Tina Fan Yes, that comes back to our core value that our partnerships are win-win. I really believe in software as a service or technology as a service but it's the product plus the people that is the delivery.<h2>A 98.2% Approval Rate Brings Peace of Mind</h2>Tina Fan Since January of 2020, over 15% of all your transactions are through Bolt merchant accounts, meaning that 15% of your customers were able to check out with that personalized one-click experience that you had mentioned. Nearly half of all the brand-new shoppers (45%) sign up for new Bolt accounts after their first purchase. What can you share about your experience and what's been working well for you?Danny Gavin I think there's obviously the numbers, but there's also that peace of mind. It's hard to put a value on that, but it's the fact that I don't have to worry at all when it comes to credit card transactions. When I ship something, I'm not going to get messed over because it has so much value. Really with Bolt, we feel that way. But the crazy thing about it is the 98.2% approval rate of transactions, which means that almost 99% of people are coming through or being approved. That means Bolt is doing such a good job of bringing through the right people and blocking out the wrong people.For us, it's really been about getting rid of that worry, to have a 98.2% approval rate on such a high value item is crazy.But Bolt once again, is that partner that's helping us from both ends, the back end, the front end, and really has your best interests in mind. Remember there are different components of both. There's the fraud part, there's the credit card processing part, and lots of different things. Bolt is really watching your back on all sides.<h2>Leveraging the Power of the Bolt Network and One-click Checkout</h2>Tina Fan Yes, and I really believe that one of the key things to making that happen is having aligned incentives. We're really focused on helping you be successful, and that's the only way we'll be successful.Let’s talk about Bolt one-click checkout. The excitement about getting a one-click checkout experience is huge among shoppers, as well as among retailers. With the growing Bolt network, over seven million shoppers can check out across our growing network of merchants with just one click. That’s because we already know that we can trust those shoppers with Bolt accounts and can approve their transactions much more easily and at a higher rate. This really reduces the hassle and the frustration during checkout. And we see hundreds of thousands of shoppers signing up for Bolt accounts every month to join this network and the growing list of merchants in our network as well.On the other hand, for retailers, this means they see an average of 63% higher checkout conversion rates, and they can keep their branded experience throughout the checkout process. I know a lot of folks who love shopping on Amazon and one of the big drivers for that is convenience. We try to make it as easy as possible and this to not be a blocker for someone buying something. Do you have any additional thoughts on the importance of the ease of checkout?Danny Gavin I do and I have a funny example. We've had people say “hey, I didn't mean to check out!” My point is, sometimes it's so easy to check out, people don't even realize that they did. I say that in a funny way, like we're talking about one out of thousands but I'm using it from a perspective that it's so simple. And the idea is, some of the other one-click checkout options out there, they take you away from the site, and you must sign in. It’s also important to look at your platform. We're currently on Magento and some people like to say Shopify is easy to check out but sometimes the Magento experience can be full of hurdles. It's also important to look at what your shopping cart looks like and having this option to make it easy is super helpful for customers. We've seen a major difference.Tina Fan Thank you so much for participating in this discussion with me. I really appreciate you taking the time, and we always appreciate you being our customer number 10 and staying loyal with us!Danny Gavin My pleasure. Thank you so much.<a href="https://www.bolt.com/landing/webinar-nrf-whats-next-in-retail-one-click-checkout-everywhere/">Watch the full recording of the session.</a>--------- Tina Fan, Chief Customer Officer, Bolt <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tina-fan-2285a73">Tina Fan</a>, the Chief Customer Officer at Bolt, is a dedicated technology executive and customer enthusiast with expertise in selling and leading customer solutions, creating and mentoring high performing teams, and growing a business. Experienced in management, operations and technology consulting for global customers in various industries and building startups.Danny Gavin, VP of Marketing, Brian Gavin Diamonds <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dannygavin/">Danny</a> is the Vice President and Director of Marketing at Brian Gavin Diamonds leading their marketing efforts that focus on exceptional customer service and relationships, selling diamonds online since 1999. He also teaches digital marketing at Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston as an adjunct professor.About Brian Gavin Diamonds <a href="https://www.briangavindiamonds.com/">Brian Gavin Diamonds</a> has been selling diamonds online since 1999. Originating from Amsterdam, moving down to South Africa, and then over to America, Houston, Texas, BGD has been in the diamond industry for over six generations, not only do they sell brilliant diamonds, but also have founded several patents and provide an unparalleled focus on customer service.Transcribed by <a href="https://otter.ai">https://otter.ai</a>