E-Commerce has huge potential in Bangladesh market which is one of the biggest in the world. Bangladesh total population is 165 Mil out of which 75% are youth (below age 40). Bangladeshi youths are tech savvy and ready to embrace any tech service in their daily life if service meets their expectation.
90% of our total population lives in towns and rural areas where the main opportunity lies for e-commerce companies in Bangladesh. As of now, Daraz and AjkerDeal are the only B2C companies which actively reaching out customers outside Dhaka city. These e-commerce companies are facing huge challenges since product delivery outside Dhaka remains inefficient and customer unfriendly due to Courier Company’s lack of capacity.
I personally spoke with 300 e-commerce customers in Bangladesh and they stated several issues regarding their satisfaction level and drivers which make them happy. I divided their response into three segments as follows
- Good service
- Inferior product quality
- Poor Customer Service
Based on their response, the following Pie chart is drawn
- 50% of the total respondents said, they are overall satisfied with the product quality they received and the kind of customer service they received during and after purchase.
- 30% of the total respondents said, they received inferior products. Products which did not match with the mentioned specifications, picture on site and expected quality
- The rest 20% said, they received poor customer service during and after purchase. Those include, delayed product delivery, replacement, refund and no replacement, refund of the returned products.
Observed Problem Areas:
- Product Experience – Product received does not match with onsite picture and specification.
- Refund and Replacement Experience – difficulty in getting refund and replacement after product returned and return product tracking system is not customer friendly.
- Customer Service Experience –Delay and sometimes no response from customer service when contacted and it is also hard to get in contact with a representative when problem arises. Sometimes when a customer gets a faulty product, he does not return it back because of the delivery charges and long product return process. Product stock out does not show while making order and sometimes it take a week to let customers know that their confirmed ordered product is not in stock.
- Customer Site Experience – They have difficulty in finding their preferred product and sometimes product description does not match with the actual product when delivered.
Recommended Action:
An e-commerce company needs to retain its customers to ensure steady growth. To increase number of order sessions by customers and retain them, I would like to propose to take the following action
- Develop Customer Loyalty Program: Offer exclusive privilege like fast delivery, product pre booking, special discount in festivals, gift packs etc for customers who demonstrate loyalty over a period of time. The loyalty program could be based on purchase amount for example, Tk 1 for Tk 100 purchase. Reward will be given based on cumulative loyalty points.
- Customer/User Experience Enhancement: Identify different customer segment based on buying behavior, CLTV, Order value, number of orders per month etc then give them personalized communication as per following
- While browsing site, custom hand picking products which they will more likely to order and prefer to buy.
- Customer account (My Account) onsite should have more personalized feeling and facility like – replacement and refund track, order tracking, product rating and review history, favorite merchant selection and ability to communicate etc.
- Personalized email marketing – communicating with customers based on their order preference and browsing history. Give them warm feeling through communication.
- Provide fast and warm customer support in every communication channel, for example – phone, facebook, live chat, email, if they face any problem with stock out, faulty product and replacement / refund issue.
- Personalized communication with customers with email and SMS who kept products into abandoned cart recently.
- Continuous improvement of site loading time, site help/FAQ and onsite search.
- Personalized notification regarding offers and products for APP customers.
- Educating Merchants on importance of providing quality products. And introducing more prominent brands and quality high value products in different categories.
- Rewards in terms of loyalty points, discounts for customers who provide rating and review of their purchased products.
- Developing platform to record customer data on site based on – browsing habit, preference, buying behavior etc.
- Developing internal reporting – Rating and Review (Customer Service), customer analytics platform based on customer data to target specific group/individual customer, Complaint Management report improvement – to serve customers better.
- Customer profile development – to serve priority customers better and faster.
Final Words:
E-commerce customers in Bangladesh want quality products within an affordable price point. In some cases, e-commerce companies in Bangladesh are failing to serve its customers with their expected product quality and after sale service. This is hurting total e-commerce industry in Bangladesh dearly since one dissatisfied customer is making another twenty potential buyers away from e-commerce.
My suggestion to the existing and upcoming e-commerce companies is – Focus on serving customers and making them satisfied whatever it takes. New visitor and customer acquisition is important, but to survive in the marathon you need to retain and serve your existing customers because they are your growth drivers.