A website for many a start-up is the first link with the customer, much like windows in brick-and-mortar stores that are designed to attract potential buyers, and the feedback on these sites helps these companies fine-tune their strategies.
Restaurant listing startup Zomato, for instance, has a global 'blog us your feedback' contest, offering every legitimate entry a goodie bag. The most constructive and critical feedback will get an iPhone 6 this year. The company talks about its work culture and its employees discuss life at Zomato, global pizza shortage and other issues on the website. "We also continue to re-evaluate the end-to-end user experience and design of our key pages every few months to ensure that we stay ahead of the curve and keep it fresh for our users," said Namita Gupta, chief product officer at Zomato. "Using Zomato should let one feel like they are interacting with the people behind it, and not just a website or a mobile app," she added. The company introduced a few months ago theme-based city listings called 'Collections' and information such as petfriendly restaurants in the city.
Other e-commerce companies are also increasingly devising ways of keeping the customers hooked to their websites for more than just their products. When Abhishek Agarwal, managing director of Bold Kiln, which provides solutions to startups and entrepreneurs, assisted a startup of tea sellers with their website, he helped create a knowledge base of tearelated articles. The startup roped in writers to discuss different types of tea, food that goes with different flavours and the infusers that should be used with tea, like silver and stainless steel, among other topics.
Similarly, taxi service company Taxi For Sure has chalked out maps catering to the young consumers and large expatriate population of cities like Bangalore. "Our design and content team created a Brewery Hopping Infographic, giving best breweries of Bangalore, with time, beer, snacks and money for each. It became quite popular in the city, and after couple of weeks, we converted that into a package," said Abhishek Mishra, head of content marketing for the start-up.
The cab icons are replaced with those related to a festival. For example, the app icon during Ganesh Chaturthi was a mice and it will be different around Christmas. Then there are blogs on the website, which discuss haunted places to visit in a city. Besides, articles laced with humour on 'odd questions asked by customers to the taxi drivers' have a place too. The common thread in all such content, of course, is travelling that requires cabs.
Consumer research team of LocalBanya focused on three types of customers — those on their desktops, ordering from home; those who use tablets/laptops and those who order via mobile phones. "The idea is when people are on their screens, what they take away apart from the ease of shopping. It's after the initial stage that the customer gets voyeuristic and starts looking for deals and other interesting stuff," said Amit Bhartiya, cofounder of LocalBanya.
The company takes a relook at its website every six weeks, giving three weeks to introduce changes in colour or visual elements. For example, they have done away with the logo on home page that most companies have. This step was taken after the feedback showed their mascot was strong enough to communicate the brand name. "Our typical audience is women in the 24-35 age group. We try to know the pulse of our audience, start looking at vibrancy, humour, content which is relevant or contextual, recipes, content which is festival focused, topical," added Bhartiya.
The company, which has four-five people looking after its website, is also looking at introducing a mobile app which will simulate the experience of pushing a shopping cart and picking up products.
Then there is the startup Hector Beverages, which is weaving "memories" through its websites to engage with consumers. The makers of energy drink Tzinga and ethnic Indian flavoured drink Paper Boat ask the consumers to talk about their childhood memories, games they played and flavours tasted when they were young. The websites are also connected to the company's profile on social networking sites and hundreds of customers share many a forgotten memory. "This helps us connect with our customers, they share recipes with us and memories are integral to the theme of our products," said Neeraj Kakkar, CEO of Hector Beverages. There are short stories on the website that talk about growing old, family holidays, wrinkled skin of the wizened and consumers talk about their experiences of the same. Kakkar has an internal team that works on ways to communicate with the masses via websites and social networking sites.
Faaso's Food Services, a growing fastfood chain with presence in four cities, has pumped up its e-commerce efforts. "Our customers, along with delicious food, also look for convenience. Our website and mobile app are designed to give them just that," said Soumyadeep Barman, head of the company's digital marketing unit. "In just a few clicks, one can choose their favourite dishes, apply discount vouchers, or even tell us how one wants the food made. Using the best tools the digital market has to offer, today we advertise, remarket offers and engage our customers all over the digital space," said Barman, adding that the company uses high-end tools to analyse customer flow through the website, thereby tweaking it and the mobile app to give the users the best possible experience.
Sales from the company's e-commerce wing have consistently grown at 20% every month and account for 40% of its delivery orders, he added.
Restaurant listing startup Zomato, for instance, has a global 'blog us your feedback' contest, offering every legitimate entry a goodie bag. The most constructive and critical feedback will get an iPhone 6 this year. The company talks about its work culture and its employees discuss life at Zomato, global pizza shortage and other issues on the website. "We also continue to re-evaluate the end-to-end user experience and design of our key pages every few months to ensure that we stay ahead of the curve and keep it fresh for our users," said Namita Gupta, chief product officer at Zomato. "Using Zomato should let one feel like they are interacting with the people behind it, and not just a website or a mobile app," she added. The company introduced a few months ago theme-based city listings called 'Collections' and information such as petfriendly restaurants in the city.
Other e-commerce companies are also increasingly devising ways of keeping the customers hooked to their websites for more than just their products. When Abhishek Agarwal, managing director of Bold Kiln, which provides solutions to startups and entrepreneurs, assisted a startup of tea sellers with their website, he helped create a knowledge base of tearelated articles. The startup roped in writers to discuss different types of tea, food that goes with different flavours and the infusers that should be used with tea, like silver and stainless steel, among other topics. Similarly, taxi service company Taxi For Sure has chalked out maps catering to the young consumers and large expatriate population of cities like Bangalore. "Our design and content team created a Brewery Hopping Infographic, giving best breweries of Bangalore, with time, beer, snacks and money for each. It became quite popular in the city, and after couple of weeks, we converted that into a package," said Abhishek Mishra, head of content marketing for the start-up.
The cab icons are replaced with those related to a festival. For example, the app icon during Ganesh Chaturthi was a mice and it will be different around Christmas. Then there are blogs on the website, which discuss haunted places to visit in a city. Besides, articles laced with humour on 'odd questions asked by customers to the taxi drivers' have a place too. The common thread in all such content, of course, is travelling that requires cabs.
Consumer research team of LocalBanya focused on three types of customers — those on their desktops, ordering from home; those who use tablets/laptops and those who order via mobile phones. "The idea is when people are on their screens, what they take away apart from the ease of shopping. It's after the initial stage that the customer gets voyeuristic and starts looking for deals and other interesting stuff," said Amit Bhartiya, cofounder of LocalBanya.
The company takes a relook at its website every six weeks, giving three weeks to introduce changes in colour or visual elements. For example, they have done away with the logo on home page that most companies have. This step was taken after the feedback showed their mascot was strong enough to communicate the brand name. "Our typical audience is women in the 24-35 age group. We try to know the pulse of our audience, start looking at vibrancy, humour, content which is relevant or contextual, recipes, content which is festival focused, topical," added Bhartiya.
The company, which has four-five people looking after its website, is also looking at introducing a mobile app which will simulate the experience of pushing a shopping cart and picking up products.
Then there is the startup Hector Beverages, which is weaving "memories" through its websites to engage with consumers. The makers of energy drink Tzinga and ethnic Indian flavoured drink Paper Boat ask the consumers to talk about their childhood memories, games they played and flavours tasted when they were young. The websites are also connected to the company's profile on social networking sites and hundreds of customers share many a forgotten memory. "This helps us connect with our customers, they share recipes with us and memories are integral to the theme of our products," said Neeraj Kakkar, CEO of Hector Beverages. There are short stories on the website that talk about growing old, family holidays, wrinkled skin of the wizened and consumers talk about their experiences of the same. Kakkar has an internal team that works on ways to communicate with the masses via websites and social networking sites.
Faaso's Food Services, a growing fastfood chain with presence in four cities, has pumped up its e-commerce efforts. "Our customers, along with delicious food, also look for convenience. Our website and mobile app are designed to give them just that," said Soumyadeep Barman, head of the company's digital marketing unit. "In just a few clicks, one can choose their favourite dishes, apply discount vouchers, or even tell us how one wants the food made. Using the best tools the digital market has to offer, today we advertise, remarket offers and engage our customers all over the digital space," said Barman, adding that the company uses high-end tools to analyse customer flow through the website, thereby tweaking it and the mobile app to give the users the best possible experience.
Sales from the company's e-commerce wing have consistently grown at 20% every month and account for 40% of its delivery orders, he added.
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