Imagine walking into a new job, leading the e-commerce operation of a retailer that hasn’t been doing a great job with its online customers, right before Christmas. Yikes!

That’s the situation Johnny Russo found himself in last Christmas. Johnny stayed calm and set to work. In today’s interview we discuss how he handled the situation.

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1. Diagnose the Problem

Looking into the data, Johnny realized that response times to customer requests had been bad; slow and erratic. Job 1 had to be figuring out a way to win them back. So how do you do that?

As Johnny put it, everyone would love 50% off, but you can’t give away so much that you bankrupt your company, so what else can you do?

To start with, reach out to those who were not treated right. Even just acknowledging that you are aware of the problem will get them listening. In Johnny’s case, because he’s new in the role, that gives him a great opportunity for a fresh start.

2. Personalize the Compensation Offer

Then make special offers, tailored to the customer if possible. High value customers will typically get a higher compensation offer than those who had only bought once.

Although the offer has to be significant enough to show that you are sincerely sorry for what happened in the past, personalizing the communication is the most important part. If the numbers are manageable, hand-written notes will signal sincerity.

3. Track Results

We didn’t discuss this in the interview, but if you are running any kind of marketing campaign, and this certainly qualifies, track the results so you will know which offers and approaches are the most successful. This is especially important if you have a lot of customers to win back. Start with a subset, and see what they respond to best. It might be a less expensive offer with a hand-written note.

4. Develop Processes

Make sure you don’t get into the same mess again by documenting all your desired processes. What is the way customer interactions should be handled? What process do we need to set up internally to make sure that is always the way it is done? What staffing do we need to make that happen? Are there ways we can make the system foolproof, with automated checks?

Other Ecommerce & Customer Service Considerations

In the interview we also talked about:

* Channel Conflict – Stores should not fear the e-commerce site. On the contrary, having an online store probably helps them more than it harms them. Listen to the interview to find out why.

* Social Media Customer Service – How do you staff the for 24/7 service expectations of today’s customers? How do you make sure that social media staff and customer service staff are aligned?

* How to Scale Personalization – If you’ve got hundreds or thousands of orders, you can’t send everyone a hand-written note and still have it sound and feel personal. So what do you do?

Johnny will be speaking at the eTail Canada conference in Toronto May 11 – 14, 2015, and retailers who read the Frank Reactions blog (or listen to the podcast) get a 25% discount! Use the code ETAILCA15FRANK.

Hope I’ll see you there! In the meantime, please share this post with others who could benefit from it,