Web-based customer surveys provide retailers with direct feedback regarding cross-channel shopping experiences, marketing campaigns and inventory. More merchants are connecting surveys to their e-Commerce sites, social networking accounts and email initiatives to allow more seamless access to the Voice of the Customer (VoC).
Bonobos makes VoC integral to all marketing campaigns and product design strategies. Through an ongoing partnership with Qualtrics, a data collection and analysis solution provider, the multichannel men’s apparel retailer consistently gathers customer insights to spotlight successes and possible improvements across the organization. The strategy allows Bonobos to harness data and create real solutions to questions and concerns.
Bonobos is “a highly data driven and very customer-centric organization,” Craig Elbert, VP of Marketing at Bonobos, said in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “Since our inception in 2007, we’ve relied heavily on customer feedback and have consistently leveraged it to make core marketing decisions. Responses make customers ‘come alive’ for our marketing team, which helps us in terms of hyper-targeting for actionable ad spends.”
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Email- and social media-based surveys empower Bonobos executives to capture a greater depth and variety of customer insights. This makes the retailer better equipped to improve product quality and design, and further refine marketing campaigns released across e-Commerce, email and social networks.
In addition to surveying customers about how they feel about recently purchase products, “we’ll also send surveys to customers who looked at products but didn’t complete a purchase,” said Elbert, “to better determine how can improve the products and/or shopping experience.”
Before making a foray into sports apparel, Bonobos relied on survey questions regarding shoppers’ preferred cut, style and fabric for sport shirts. Feedback allowed the retailer to make better decisions around product design, according to Elbert. Along with receiving granular insights on new product releases, Bonobos leverages the Qualtrics solution to judge the efficiency of online customer service strategies.
Adding Depth To Social Media Insights
Progressive strategies — such as developing a team solely focused on addressing customer service via social networking sites — have made Bonobos a recognized forward-thinker in the social media space.
But consistent dialogue on Facebook and Twitter is effective only to a certain extent, according to Elbert. “Social media monitoring is a great way to keep the pulse on what customers are talking about,” he said, “but there are certain constraints around that and less detail.” The Qualtrics tool has features and capabilities that allows the brand to “dig deeper” into product sentiment and attitudes around specific marketing campaigns.
For example, demographics-based surveys empower Bonobos to segment customers more efficiently, based on age, location, hobbies and other data points. By coupling this information with social data and feedback, the retailer is on the road to creating more relevant marketing campaigns across channels.
