Step 1. Finding the Right Thing

National Research University Higher School of Economics

Business and Management Department

Customer Experience Management

Essay:

ASOS: Customer Journey Review & Analysis

Written by

Ilya Chuev

Moscow 2016

Introduction

The aim of this essay is not only to describe the first hand customer journey, but also to analyze best practices, which were implemented by ASOS in attempt to ensure that their customers are receiving best customer experience possible.

ASOS is a global online fashion retailer with over 75,000 product lines across womenswear, menswear, footwear, accessories, jewelry and beauty. Around 3,000 new product lines being introduced each week. At least 850 fashion brands are available through asos.com, but also ASOS has its own line of clothing, which offers a vast variety of pieces ranging from casual to formal wear. Fashion retailer has websites targeting the UK, USA, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Russia, Australia and China and it ships to 240 countries from the distribution center in the UK (6).

The idea of ASOS started in 1999 when founders Quentin Griffiths and Nick Robertson had the idea of starting an internet business where people could find clothes or accessories they had seen celebs wearing.

A website was registered in August 1999 and www.asseenonscreen.com went live in March 2000, with a full launch in June 2000 under the name AsSeenOnScreen. By the end of that first trading year, the company won the Best Trendsetter Award by The Sunday Times. In consecutive years the brand continued to grow and develop leading to today’s impressive revenue for the financial year ending 31 August 2015 - £1,119.9 million. UK total sales went up by 28% and international by 12%. As of August 2015, ASOS PLC has net assets of £237.3 million.

ASOS caters to a younger shopper, the company sees its customer as a 20-something fashion enthusiast with high expectations in terms of customer experience and service. As of now the main platform is ASOS.com, but shopping is also possible through mobile applications which are available for following platforms: IOS, Android and Windows phone.

According to ASOS’s financial report for 2015 company has 9.9 million active customers (defined as having shopped at least ones in last 12 months). Social media statistics are following: Facebook - 3.7 m followers, Google+ - 2.4 m, Instagram - 3.3 m, Twitter – 885 k (4).

Customer Journey

The main part of the essay will be devoted to describing first hand customer journey, several parallels will be drawn between UK and international online shopping experience. For simplification purposes registration process will be omitted since it is pretty basic and standard for online shopping platforms. Shopping parameters are following:

· Platform – website asos.com;

· Customer – male, mid-twenties;

· Customer location – Russia, Moscow;

Step 1. Finding the Right Thing

The first thing that customer encounters that is worth mentioning is user friendly interface on the website. Visible top part of the site is rather minimalistic: search window followed by gender specification buttons and accompanied by delivery notes and conditions. Menu buttons are available in the upper right part of the site. The mission of the company is translated to the customer through inspirational images and comprehendible 4-word sentence. It seems that stylistically wise ASOS knows its customer well enough – we are not being bombarded with tons of unnecessary impersonalized information about best-selling items, best deals or oher random irrelevant information.

Upon clicking gender specifying button we are presented with drop-down menu of further categories. The platform allows the customer not only to select particular clothing category, but also encourages us to explore available brands, which is the part where personalization comes in play: by default, most popular brands are visible on the top, but in course of customer’s usage of the platform the list is replaced by items most relevant personally for you based on your user search and view statistic.

The search engine used within the platform is rather impressive: it allows the customer to specify up to 5 consecutive characteristics of a product. Which means that if you, for example, are looking for a “silver fringe bag by River Island” the engine will be able to process the query and will redirect you to the exact product. This way of searching is most efficient on the customer’s end in terms of time and effort (2).

But the customer is not limited only by the above mentioned searching option. The platform has intuitively designed “browsing option”, which is more suitable for the customer that is not pressed for time and wants to explore all the available products in desired category. Of course, browsing results are further customizable through “browsing refining tools”. For example, for “Shoes, Boots & Trainers” category following specifications are available: brand, style, product type, color and size. In case customer wants to further personalize browsing results, different sorting filters are available.

Upon selecting a product one has an option chose color, size, watch 360⁰ of the product in case it is an accessory or watch a runway video of a model wearing if it is a piece of clothing, in this case there is always information displays concerning the height of the model and size of the garment which is being modeled.

Size guide and measurement tips are thoughtfully placed in a pop-up window. Especially helpful for the customer is conversion chart since different brands mark their product based on metrical system native to the country where it is produced. This simple tool does not only enhance customer experience, because no customer enjoys receiving clothing in sizes that differ from their own, but also cuts companies costs associated with product exchanging or money refunding activities

It is worth mentioning that since most products are presented on pictures as parts of “total looks”, on the bottom of the screen customers are being suggested to further browse complimenting products presented on the picture in case customer is interested in them. This cross-promotional tool is both beneficial for the client and the company, the first party get some sort of fashion advice of compatibility of pieces of clothing and the second party boosts customer experience as well as its own revenue.

Upon being on the product screen the customer is ultimately presented with three options: in case of no interest to leave the product, in case of being interested but not ready to buy one can add the product to favorite list and return to it later, in case of willingness to buy to add to the shopping bag.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 1293