What makes your customers click…

COVID-19 accelerated digital transformation for several businesses. We previously wrote on what businesses could do to make things easier for their customers during these difficult times. It was also clear that for several brands, this was perhaps the first foray into digital and they were not getting this right.

We chatted to Bernard Momanyi, CEO of Onesha, on their thoughts on trends and how brands can capitalise on the opportunities presented.

What trends are you seeing this year?

Most businesses were used to traditional ways of customer acquisition. The pandemic presented business owners a new reality where they had to develop new ways of customer engagement or risk going under. Most businesses are now investing heavily in e-commerce, digital marketing and are starting to make digital a key pillar in their business growth.

• Digital marketing — Businesses will double down on new channels of communication that will rival their spend on traditional media. A good number of business owners had never been exposed to the potential that digital holds in their marketing plans, now that most of them have seen the impact, we expect this trend to continue post-pandemic.
• E-commerce — This is a sector that businesses were hesitant to invest in either because they were happy with the status quo or there were high entry costs with established players. But, the consumer is increasingly looking for more online options. We, therefore expect the uptake of e-commerce to continue both on vertical integration by brick n mortar stores and entry of new players in the e-commerce space.
• Digital payments — Cashless payments are increasingly becoming popular in African markets; with Mpesa almost doubling their daily transactions and the latest acquisition of Paystack Nigeria by Stripe, this sector is poised for upward growth.

What do you see being done well in this space?

Jumia — Having closed down on key markets and becoming laser-focused on markets that are more likely to make them profitable, Jumia is poised to becoming Africa’s Amazon if they maintain the current momentum and increasing their merchant incentives.

What could brands be doing better in this space?

Training! Brands need to invest more in training specifically geared towards solving their [customers’] digital needs and building relevant solutions.

To add to this, brands should also consider what are the appropriate channels for engaging their customers. Lots of small businesses in Kenya operate well through just Instagram and Whatsapp. Customers are happy with the visualisation and flexibility of these channels. Couple this with the great personalised experience a small business can afford to its customers, you have a winning formula!

Getting a customer’s attention online is even harder than offline — what should brands be thinking about here?

Brands need to invest more in developing content that connects with their consumers. 80% of people often go online to get entertained, how do you then position your brand to this customer objective?

Document what your company does every day via video for people to “feel” your brand.

Humanising your brand through stories is a great way for people to develop an emotional connection to you. To add to this, we also recommend thinking about your e-Commerce site as you would for your physical shop window.

• What can you do to firstly attract customers to your site and then keep them on your site? The longer a customer stays on your site, the higher your chances of converting them.
• How easy is your site to navigate? There are lots of free tools that allow user actions (click, scrolls, pauses) to be recorded so you can understand what your customers are trying to do and what they are not interested in. This will help you to simplify and tailor your site to your customers.
• How do you deal with abandoned users and carts? A large chunk of customers often leave due to inflexibility on payment options, inflexibility on delivery options or even if information is not transparent or consistently available (e.g. returns, refunds and replacements). Ensure you survey your abandoned customers to understand the root cause and address those issues.

How can brands build trust for customers especially those that are used to buying offline?

Communicate with empathy and show that you actually care by reflecting your customer’s pain points in your actions and your communication.

We live in a time where empathy is a critical differentiator for customer experience. This is also very strongly linked to Bernard’s comments on humanising businesses.

The other consideration around trust is that shoppers find reviews from others persuasive — to buy or not to buy… Brands need to think about how they can collect customer feedback, act on it and display it to build confidence in potential customers.

Which channel do you see as having the most potential for digital commerce in our market?

Facebook — Facebook is increasingly becoming the go-to place for building social connections as well as exploring what your friends are buying, hence the rise of socialcommerce on Facebook, with most of the population in Africa equating Facebook to the Internet, it’s going to be a force to reckon with on how business is done in Africa!

Onesha enables businesses to access top creative talent ranging from skilled digital media marketers, graphic designers, photographers & videographers and software engineers.