Mission Impossible:
Find Your Website

All over the world, local transport has already been launched, and interchange within the countries have been restored. Some authorities are even opening their borders and restoring the tourism industry. You can find this information on the map, which mystery shopper agencies Scheduling update every week.

During the quarantine period, bicycle owners were in a better position. This individual transport does not pose a threat of infection, as only one person is riding, and it is easy to follow the recommended distance of one and a half meters.

The quarantine period should have been the impetus for the bike manufacturing companies. It was a chance that most companies used to develop their omnichannel and improve their online presence.

Using the example of one of these companies, we want to show the lost opportunities and shortcomings that prevent such companies from becoming the first in their business.

Company N positions itself as the one that due to a strong passion has evolved from a small shop into one of the largest bicycle manufacturers in Europe in 20 years, also thanks to numerous investments in modern production with the introduction of the latest IT solutions. We decided to conduct a small research and find out how its positioning coincides with the clients’ vision.

So, what have we discovered?

Website Fails

The website’s UI / UX is at an extremely low level. At each stage of the journey, a Client has to make a lot of efforts:

When searching on the official site, in 100% of cases the search results in a site version with critical errors that make it impossible to complete the main tasks:

• There is no button to switch the language. Only English is available. 
• 20% of the English version of the site appears in the local language only. 
• The most important tabs and functions do not work: to check product characteristics, to make an order, to find a dealer, search option.
• 80% of customers believe that the brand is only sold in the country of origin (because of the end of the domain, there is only a local list of distributors).
• The list of dealers only shows dealers in the country of manufacture. The tab with the list of EU dealers is at the bottom of the page — 0% of clients have found it. 
• Some tabs are empty or not working.
• For some products, there is no “add to cart” button.

Dealer Center Fails

• 57% of clients did not get an answer over the phone, having made at least 5 attempts.
• 85% of customers did not receive a reply to their requests via email.
• When contacting the call center, the bot provides a language selection option. However, when choosing English, it still speaks to you in the local language.

Distribution Channels Fails 

• The Customer Effort Score (CES) to find a dealer in the EU is 3.4 out of 5.
• 40% of users could not find distributor sites on Google.
• When searching for a site in the EU, only the local site appears. When a customer goes to the distributor’s tab, only the local representatives appear. 80% of customers believe that the brand is sold only in the country of origin. 
• Distributor websites on European end-of-domain .eu sites are incorrect, they do not exist.
• The Russian site is temporarily out of service. 
• 50% of users could not find the products on dealer websites in the first attempt. On average, it took 5 steps to find the products on the websites.

Two Worlds Challenges 

So, how was it? Would you like to ride a bike like this? Nowadays users no longer differentiate their real and digital experience. Both influence their opinion of the company. If we look at the leaders of their industries, it becomes clear that customers acquire not only a product itself but also experience, impressions, when buying both in a real store and online.

People are ready to wait in a queue for a new iPhone model, while other brands’ gadgets with the same specifications are cheaper and available without any waiting lists. To achieve such results and become a leading company, you need to make every effort to communicate with customers.

What needs to be done to achieve this:

1. Develop a customer journey map. Customer experience (CX) tracking includes the work through all the steps and points of interaction with a customer. For an effective CJM, you need to define the goals, analyze the target audience, map customer needs, and analyze your competitors, including competitor price monitoring.
2. Be accessible. For some businesses, to miss a specific communication channel means losing part of the audience. Companies that use all available sources to attract consumers (websites, social media, e-mail) have created an army of loyal customers. If you already have all these channels of communication, but you believe that your clients are not 100% satisfied, ask a usability testing agency for help. It is worth checking how competently you use these channels. 
3. Test your digital solutions. If you are not yet using all available channels of communication, if you are going to launch a new digital product or are developing software, product testing is a must for its successful release. Testing digital products will protect you from product bugs and financial losses from losing customers who may be concerned about these errors.
4. Improve your service. Make your customers happy, build an army of fans of your brand, provide them with an exceptional level of service, whether digital or not, and your business will have no choice but to succeed. This is possible with regular testing of your service, distribution check, and secret shopper audits, especially when digital and real worlds are merged.
5. Improve your product. Even if it seems that there is no room for improvement, this is your misguiding thinking. )) After all, every year a new model of iPhone is released. You can argue that the quality of a new product is not always better than its previous version, and old bugs turn out to be features that were even very useful. To avoid this, see clause 3. ))

Scheduling stand for good service, quality product, and environmentally friendly transport. ))