Overcoming Choice Paralysis (feat. Claudine Bianchi, CMO at Zoovu)

Jul 5, 2019

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Our 2019 theme of clienteling for digital commerce continues with an interview with Claudine Bianchi, CMO at Zoovu, a Guided Commerce service which connects customer needs to products and services from retail brands. Listen now!

Show Notes:

Main Takeaways:

Future Commerce has declared 2019 the year of "clienteling" and personalized experiences for consumers.
Zoovu is helping (mostly) B2C companies create curated product search selections for their customers.
Amazon brands that work with Zoovu are seeing incredible returns at 3X pre-Zoovu sales.
The future of retail and commerce is a world in which the ability to hyper-personalize experiences for customers is accessible to business worldwide.

Zoovu is Bringing The Sales Associate Experience Online:

Claudine Bianchi, CMO at zoovu, is on the podcast today, explaining how zoovu helps connect customer needs to actual products.
Zoovu is an AI-conversational marketing platform that can replicate the in-store sales associate experience for online shopping experiences.
So what is Zoovu's mission, and how can it help retailers and brands connect with their customers?
Well, according to Claudine, Zoovu is working to solve "choice paralysis" for the customers of B2C brands and retailers.
For example, one brand that Zoovu works with is Clairol, a haircare brand, and through using Zoovu, Clairol is to able to help customers choose the hair care product that is best for their individual hair type.

Data-Driven Personas: Separating The Experts & Beginners:

"What Zoovu does is through a series of questions it narrows down choices and actually connects you with the products that are most likely to satisfy your requirements."
One of the coolest parts of Zoovu is that the platform uses anonymous data to craft personas and then curates products for customers based on answers to questions asked.
Claudine says that cameras are a great example of this, because even though there may be aspiring photographers and expert level photographers shopping for cameras, they all have the same goal, to take great photographs.
So as opposed to every-camera-ever Zoovu will make targeted suggestions that will fit the specifications the user is looking for.
Phillip says that five years ago, a lot of marketers were turning to more sophisticated platforms because they were tired of overly broad email campaigns.
"It's like going into the store, without having to go into the store."

Do You Even Zoovu: ROI Metrics for Brands:

Phillip asks Claudine what she thinks the next step of the shopping experience is, and what are the metrics that brands that are listed on Amazon that work with Zoovu use to determine ROI?
Claudine says that Zoovu works with over 80 brands on Amazon and that those brands are seeing 3x the sales pre-Zoovu, which is incredible.
Some of those brands, according to Claudine, are seeing conversion rates of 107%, because what brands can accomplish when they have the correct data is incredible.
"Some of the key metrics are conversion rates, increasing sales, decreasing return rates, increase in average order value up upwards of 70-80%.

Everyone's Welcome to Zoovu With Zoovu:

So Zoovu integrates with a multitude of platforms including Magento, Shopify, SalesForce, Adobe, and many others.
Claudine also explains the actual AI (machine learning) powering Zoovu: "We've been looking at e-commerce and sales patterns for the past ten years, and we've been able to develop the types of algorithms that will help determine the questions we ask next."
So where can retailers and brands looking to Zoovu go to find out more?
Claudine says that the Zoovu website is a great place to find out more, as there are live samples to demonstrate the power of the platform, a pretty robust blog, and plenty of ways to contact the Zoovu team.

Claudine's predictions for the next five years of retail and commerce:

"We're going to see a lot more adoption of technology into the retail and buying experience everything from AR to promote our products and to support service those products. The online experience is going to get a lot more personalized and targeted. So that consumers will see products they want to want to see, and for how much they want to pay. We're going to see this vast customization on the global level where it's not just the major players. Anyone with a website will be able to reach people who they never were able to reach before. And consumers will have unprecedented access to products that they didn't know existed".

As always: we want to hear from our listeners! Do you currently use Zoovu? How are you engaging with your customers? Are you asking the right questions and using that data to power your customer experience?

Let us know in the comment section on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Linkedin! We love hearing from our listeners!