During the last holiday break we had a company party. Every year we receive a gift bag full of great little goodies and just so happen we receive Omaha Steak gift cards.
For months I had been eyeballing the piece of plastic but never got around to ordering anything until recently. What I’m going to tell you is part obsessive, part informational and all inspiring.
Here’s what happened between Omaha Steaks and I. If you own an eCommerce business or a brick-and-mortar, take a seat and get some insights from the customer perspective – what you read could give you the one idea that excels your business.
Hamburgers and Hot Dogs: With Testing Intentions
I’ve heard from many people how great Omaha Steak’s service is toward their customer. In some way, they are like the Zappos of meat.
I decided it was time to order from the website. But sneaky me, I was going to take notes how they handled me as a customer so I could break down what I liked about them, what I didn’t and how it could be applied to other business (maybe even yours).
I’m a little weird like this but so are your customers. I’m also a bit of a ninja, a bit sneaky. I’m one of those nerds that keeps notes on how the customer experience is so I could then post about it in the blog or tell others.
Insight: Your competitors may be shopping your website at this very moment. It’s not corporate espionage to see how other websites work – it’s smart business research. Next time you’re on a competitor’s website, see what makes it so intuitive and easy to use.
A Website That Simply…Works
I’m very fond of great web design. I dabble in it frequently, designing my own websites and working freelance for others. I guess I could say I have an eye for attractive and functional design.
Omaha Steaks’ website excels on various levels:
- Strong brand identity through logo, color and tag line
- Attractive product pictures
- Easy (and SEO friendly) sidebar navigation
- Enticing daily deals, contests and promotions
- Effective and clear call to actions
But I digress. I came here to order food, not exactly rocket science which is exactly what the website tries to avoid.
Insight: The attractive product pictures are what entices and sells on Omaha Steaks (it’s the first and most prominent subliminal call to action – you almost drool at the pictures). If you’re using product shots created from your personal camera, it’s time to up the ante and invest in proper product shots.
An Unexpected First Round Test
The gift card I received only had a value of $50 – I knew I was going to dig around to find what I was looking for within my budget. However, Omaha Steaks does a really great job at allowing you to search on various parameters based based on your personal preferences.
Insight: Pay close attention to how you allow your customers to navigate your website. Don’t pit them against the grain if they don’t search how you’ve configured your site to be. Adapt your website to each customer.
After searching for a few minutes, I landed on a pack of hamburgers and hot dogs. Hey, I’m simply, I just wanted the essentials for a barbecue. The website has such a nice flow of design that I took one look at the pictures and went to place my order.
Shopping Cart Abandonment
Actually, when I went to go place my order I became distracted by a project I was working on so I ended up abandoning the shopping cart. The entire experience for me was perfect but I simply had to bounce; this throws a major screwball at Omaha because they can guess why I left (price, shipping, items) but mine was simply random.
Insight: Shopping cart abandonment is one area of eCommerce that every online business has to monitor and optimize. Abandonment is very frustrating for eCommerce owners because each person has their own reason for leaving, not giving the owner much information about what happened.
And The Follow Up
Because I finished the account creation (which I don’t highly recommend for casual visitors) my email was already in their system. As you’re probably thinking, I received an automated email the next day asking politely if I wanted to finish my order or if I had trouble.
I didn’t think much of it because I was still busy with my project so I deleted the email.
A few days later I finally found the time and placed my order.
Insight: I believe if I wasn’t contacted through email I may not have ordered for quite some time. The email kept it fresh on my mind. These email system can easily be taken care of with back end systems installed in the shopping cart software.
The Order Is Up
Roughly 3 days later I received a package in the mail from Omaha Steaks. I was expecting a box but was pleasantly surprised to see a styrofoam cooler.
Contained inside the cooler was my order of burgers and franks; neatly packaged in a rustic brown box with the Omaha Steak logo. The cooler also contained a bag of dry ice which kept everything freezing cold. I couldn’t help but remark how wonderful the packaging and delivery time was.
If you or I were to send food items, it’s absolutely critical that the order stays fresh. If it were to arrive on my doorstep half thawed out, I would have immediately called them and complained – it would have put off my entire experience.
Insight: Take not eCommerce owners. The cooler they sent me was branded with their logo and kept the food freezing cold – this made me immediately comment to my friend what a great service they provided. Word-of-Mouth advertising is very powerful; try to make even your delivery an experience.
Delivering Quality Product: What We All Can Learn
Each business is built upon, essentially, 3 main pillars:
- Excellent customer service
- Excellent product
- Excellent pricing
Don’t let the myths of business fool you, these are the things most people are looking for. These are the items which builds a great customer relationship and repeat business.
Excellent Customer Service
How many times have you called tech support or customer service at a company to be greeted by someone who genuinely doesn’t want to be talking to you? It doesn’t make any sense because at this point you are the customer; they should be bending over backwards to help you with your problem, this is what builds trust and repeat customers.
Business owners take note: many people still place orders through the phone. Make all of your employees to get on board and answer the phones as cheerful and helpful as possible. Let your employees make additional decisions like refunds, sending a free product or giving the customer credit without first getting your permission.
Omaha didn’t call me (I didn’t want them to) but they did send me a cheery email telling me my order was being shipped and how I could track it. This is quite common for many businesses so it’s not anything I’d give bonus points for but it is very essential because I want to know when I’m getting my product.
Insight: If you want to go the extra mile immediately call the person who ordered and personally thank them. If you can’t get through to them, simply send a personalized email and tell them you tried to contact them but are thanking them through the email. This little extra step really makes the customer feel appreciated and will help build trust.
Excellent Pricing
If you own an eCommerce site, you’re most likely competing in a costly price war with your competitors. The problem with participating in this price war is there will always be someone that is willing to shave off even more of their profits to make the sale.
Insight: customers don’t always want the lowest price: they want an experience and quality product. When you are the lowest price for your items, you may be coming across as cheap.
Omaha doesn’t have the cheapest price for their products. I could have easily spent my money at Walmart or any other food market but what they did deliver was QUALITY. My family and friends thoroughly enjoyed the burgers and franks during the bbq we had – Omaha’s product was buzzing.
Excellent Product
You should also be placing a very high amount of your efforts into creating a product which is lasting and memorable. Seth Godin makes a great point in The Purple Cow how many business will create a ‘safe’ product for the market, then dump all of their money into marketing.
You may sell a lot of your products but you aren’t leaving a lasting impression with your customers.
Insight: I would much rather pay a premium for a product which lasts me for many years than one that will break in a few months. Here’s where you can take note from Apple – you pay a premium but their products are filled with quality.
Warm Calling: How To Do It Right
Over a month later, just the other day, I was walking to my car during lunch. I don’t know if they timed this perfectly to catch people when they’re feeling hungry but I got a call from an Omaha sales rep thanking me for my previous purchase.
And this is where it got interesting…
The rep then told me that they are having a very special sale where if I ordered a certain amount, they wold give me over $100 of additional product. The deal was essentially a 2-for-1.
But it wasn’t the deal that had me…
What really made the call stood out was the rep sounded very genuine. As he was talking to me he would slip in previous order information as part of his pitch but it didn’t sound at all like he was reading it from his screen.
Because the conversation was so casual sounding, I let him continue.
By the end of the call, I told him I was not ready just yet to order and surprisingly he wasn’t pushy. I like that. However, what I have already planted in my head was that I will be ordering again.
Insight: Use CRM programs like SalesForce or built in systems on your eCommerce suite to pull up customer information and order dates. Use this information so you can craft the the conversation around THEIR needs, not that you’re trying to be direct and forceful.
What We Can Take Away From This
If you’ve got this far, you’re probably wondering why I’m going into some huge spiel about Omaha Steaks and their sales funnel.
eCommerce owners need to realize customers aren’t just looking for the cheapest products. Customers want an experience. A great experience will build repeat customers and word-of-mouth advertising.
If the food was cheap, arrived late and thawed, the sales person pushy or the website felt difficult to use I could honestly say I’d never go back to Omaha Steaks.
Your business shouldn’t try to copy Omaha Steaks word-for-word (or Amazon for that matter), simply realize that the customer experience is so much more than just selling a product to them. You need to be remarkable every step of the process, from ordering to delivery and even follow up.
I hope you can get something out of this.
Even one great idea you could implement in your business today should see an increase in your sales. Start from the bottom up. Go through your website as if you were a customer, try calling your customer service to see how they act or even order a product and track the results.
Get inside the mind of a customer, that’s what this post was about.
Happy commerce.
Hi Murray,
Wow! Great write-up on Omaha Steaks! You really broke it down …and made me hungry just reading it, lol.
Guess this company really knows a thing or two about customer service as well.
Had fun reading. Thanks for sharing!
Have a fabulous weekend!
Ilka
.-= Ilka Flood´s last blog ..Blogging For Business? | Always Put Out Quality Content =-.
Thanks Ilka!
It was kind of funny how the post came together so quickly. I was actually on my way out to lunch and ended up skipping it because I had such a rush of ideas to write about it.
Al though I’m not in any eCommerce business but this learning going to help me in future. Specially the content freshness. I can think it as a blog post and try to deliver more fresh content to get back more readers. Nice reading.
.-= Arafat Hossain Piyada´s last blog ..Remove traces leaved by IObit programs after uninstall =-.
I agree, I think you can take these tips beyond just eCommerce and apply it to a blog.
If someone comments or is really becoming part of your community, you can give back to them via linking to their articles, highlighting them in your posts or setting something up through emails later such as guest posts.
Wow. Awesome. I currently run an e-commerce site and I guess I realize some of my mistakes after reading your experience.
Customers don’t want interesting or cheap products only. They also want GREAT EXPERIENCE from the store. Yep, I should remember that and thanks a lot!
I’m glad you enjoyed it and hope you can apply these to your site – and gain some great revenue!
When I think cheap, I’m thinking of people selling knockoff items or replicas on eBay. They could be perfectly fine but I do have to question why one seller is listing their products at $2 while the other is at $20. In my opinion, I would think a company which I spend $20 on would provide me with support and more respect than the previous.
By making a great experience and remarkable product, people will undoubtedly talk about you and your business.
Great observations Murlu! I’m going to have to agree with “Attractive product pictures” because this post definitely made me hungry lol.
Anyway, I like the idea of following-up when someone abandons the shopping cart. In fact, I wish Clickbank and the likes would incorporate that into their checkout process somehow (or Mal’s-E which is what I use).
This is an awesome case study and I’m sure if Omaha steaks saw it, they’d definitely be proud
.-= Jonathan Beebe´s last blog ..What Is Your Biggest Online Challenge? =-.
Hey Jonathan, that would be awesome if Clickbank did something like that but I believe I have an idea how you could actually do that using 3rd party advertising
– maybe save this for a post in the future.
Omaha Steaks did get a hold of me which I will be updating the post – it’s shocking!
Hi Murray,
Thanks for the in depth analysis. Coincidentally, I am looking into Omaha steaks for a possible client promotion and your review makes it obvious this would be the right company for the promotion we have in mind.
Regards,
Tammi
.-= Tammi Kibler´s last blog ..Free Mind Mapping Software Online =-.
I would love to hear how well that works out – I think they have a very strong brand. I never thought I’d really be buying food online but they certainly changed that; I’m sure they do it with many others as well. In fact, the logo is stuck in my head whenever I hear steak now haha.
Hi Murray,
Me again.
Your feed e-mail at the top right says your feed is not set up for e-mail subscriptions.
Shoot me an e-mail when it’s working and I will subscribe.
Cheers!
.-= Tammi Kibler´s last blog ..Four Mistakes Sarah Ferguson Can Teach Writers to Avoid =-.
Hi Murray, you’ve really crystallized a lot of what I look for in an online shopping experience. A professional, easy to use website keeps me from leaving. If I can’t find what I want after a few tries I click away. Those pictures are great too.
I often pay a little more to return to a company who has treated me well rather than take a chance on someone new who could be frustrating to deal with.
I really like the followup with a deal too. That can move me from “I wasn’t thinking about this company” to “is it time to reorder?”
Great point Jennifer.
I’m sure you’ve heard how ‘cold calling is dead’ but now it’s all about customer relation management (CRM). If your customer only buys from you once a month, if both parties forget it’s likely the customer will find a new company because they’ll restart the shopping process.
Catching them at the right time can make all the difference.