Dear Mr. Adolfo Villagomez, Senior Vice President Online & CMO at The Home Depot.
I’m writing to you because on March 13th, 2021, we at PostFunnel – a publication dedicated to everything relationship marketing – analyzed your brand’s site experience according to the “7 commandments for basic CRM”.
These are the basic principles that brands should follow in today’s zeitgeist to improve their chances of building meaningful customer relationships.
You can read more about the method at the bottom of this page.
Since we ran the CRM analysis on your brand a few months back, we wanted to revisit it today to see what has changed. After all, we know these things are dynamic.
You can find the original analysis here.
Back then, your brand did absolutely great! With a fantastic score of 61/70 – or, 87%, enough for a tie with Target for the 3rd spot – out of the first 44 brands we examined. Now, more than five months later, The Home Depot’s site still sits at the exact same great position – only behind the double-pet-whammy of Pet’s at Home and Petco, and THD’s fierce rival, Lowe’s.
With 9 for Transparency, 10 for Incentives and Perks, 10 for Relevancy, 10 for Helpfulness, 10 for UX, and 8 for Leveraging Social Media (to help with CRM Marketing) – it was really hard finding flaws in our experience as visitors on homedepot.com.
Besides in one crucial category – that of “Realtime Personalization.” This category is where we regularly see the biggest gap between the modern customers’ expectations and the moden ecommerce sites’ ability to meet them.
In other words, the disappointing 4/10 THD got for “Realtime Personalization” did not come to us as a surprise. Even though the technology is there to help brands offer their site’s visitors and online customers a cohesive, coherent, consistent experience across touchpoints – and even though we know how such great personalization efforts can help lead to a 33% increase in Customer Lifetime Value – still, most brands are missing what is, in truth, a simple put shot.
For the category of “Realtime Personalization” we look for two things: 1) our on-site experience. 2) what happens when we leave the site.
And back in May, on THD was far from impressing us on both parts.
Now, we are glad to say that, while we were still not retargeted on social media – even when we created and account and signed in, and then left a bunch of products in our cart – we did see improvements on the on-site aspect.
For example, before we signed-in, going around the site – and focusing on garden products – resulted in both the appearance of “Recently Viewed Items” component on the Home Page.
And, when we scrolled further down the Home Page, we could notice that the “Sponsored Products” recommendation component suddenly included more garden-related items. Plus, the “Top Categories For You” included Garden as the first option.
After we signed in, the experience was even better. A big “WELCOME BACK” component appeared – all personalized, and mostly Garden related.
This is a good experience, and for sure is worth a lot of extra points. The fact that the “Frequently Bought Together” also included products which are not of the exact same kind (which was the case when we checked it five months ago).
Still, we were able to find two areas where some more realtime personalization would contribute to a better experience. 1) the “Get Everything You Need” component on the product page, was located wayyyy to low, and required an investigative eye to find it. As, similarly to the “Frequently Bought Together”, this was too cross-selling, it’s a waste to hide it.
And, 2) the product recommendations when adding an item to the cart (on the pop-up) or inside the cart itself, were of lesser quality when it comes to personalization, up-selling, and cross-selling.
Overall, though, we think this is a solidly personalized visit, and we give it a 7 – leaving 3 points off for the lack of realtime retargeting (even when we left items in the cart) and for the not-really personalized recommendations within the cart itself (and its popup).
Still, with extra 3 points – a 64/70 score translates into 91%, exactly enough for an all-time high, tied with our fierce leaders, Pets at Home.
We were glad to see things have improved. It’s clear that THD is prioritizing personalization and customer experience. To really take it to the next level, a Multichannel Marketing Hub with an actionable CDP at its core and AI capabilities that create new customer segments and autonomously map CRM journeys, is what smart marketing teams use to boost CTLV by 33%.
To learn more about how you and THD can take full advantage of all the latest, cutting-edge realtime marketing personalization and customer segmentation practices, feel free to reach out to me at any time. That happens to be our expertise!
Cheers, Amit Bivas, VP Marketing at Optimove
**
About the 7 Commandments for Basic CRM Tactics in A Post-Coronavirus World:
We have a saying here at PostFunnel: All marketing is relationship marketing. Why? Because every touchpoint with a potential customer impacts the kind of relationship they will have with a brand, if and when they become customers. Even branding has. It’s like what people hear about their upcoming blind-date can determine the actual meeting’s success.
In recent years, it meant that the ways brands support global, social, environmental, and even political causes have become increasingly critical to their relationships with customers.
Then, 2020 happened. With its global pandemic’s tragedy, economic downturn, and historical social and political turmoils – people turned their eyes to brands, almost as much as they have to governments. Expecting and judging brands by how they conduct themselves throughout such events was never more crucial to a company’s CRM success.
One after the other, the internet got flooded with articles advising marketing and CRM leaders on how to make sure their brand is suited for this new reality. So, we combed dozens of them – and came up with a list of 7 staples that appeared in most of those articles.
The seven most essential commandments a brand must follow these days to make sure they put themselves in the best position possible to develop long, meaningful relationships with their customers.
The 7 Commandments:
1) Transparency. Show the human side of your brand
2) Give incentives and perks (that make sense)
3) Be relevant (with your language, offering)
4) Be helpful (improve your communities’ lives)
5) Personalize in realtime (cause, duh)
6) Master UX (slow, clunky websites are no longer an option)
7) Leverage social media (don’t just treat it as a sales channel)
Yup, that’s all. Without being at least decent at all of these, your CRM efforts will struggle to achieve their full potential.
And, let’s be honest, it’s not too much to ask of a brand, right?
Yet, you’d be surprised how many well-known brands fall short too often when analyzed through these lenses.
Still, it makes some sense – these changes are happening fast, and not all brands can react and adapt quickly enough and on all fronts.
And we’re here to follow these reactions and adjustments as they happen.