Optimizing Shopping Reward Website
When one of our most loyal clients came to us looking for help to optimise a new online shopping reward website, we at Tpoll drew on our extensive research experience to provide an integrated research approach.
Our client, a well-known high street retailer, planned to launch the new website to the public after a ‘trial’ period - in which loyal customers would be invited to give detailed qualitative feedback on the website usability to improve the customer journey. Quantitative web analytics and sales data would also be collected over the trial period, to establish the most effective communications to drive traffic to the website.
4,000 customers were invited to trial the new website – they were divided into four groups, with three groups given various incentives to visit the website (i.e. reward points versus discount on first purchase). Tpoll measured website visits from each of the incentive types and established the most effective incentive to drive website traffic.
The fourth group were asked to visit the website and feedback within a Tqual qualitative forum designed by our in-house IT design team. The forum was live for a month, during which participants could freely explore and use the trial website, and were able to give feedback on all aspects in addition to having completed specific tasks. In the forum customers were able to respond to topics posted by the Tpoll moderator, post their own questions and talk about it with other customers. Our client was given observer access, so that they could follow the discussion and ask the Tpoll moderators to add in new questions to extend and further the discussion around points of interest.
After the trial we met with the client to workshop the findings. The trial had highlighted a number of areas that could be improved ahead of the launch, maximising satisfaction and user experience for customers. The incentive most effective at bringing customers to the website was rolled out to the entire customer base and alongside this, the home page was simplified for first time visitors which reduced bounce rates, and website navigation was streamlined to aid the customer and achieve return visits.