🤝 How we view guided selling (and the stores we love to work with)

Product finders are extremely powerful. Guided selling has the potential to change your entire e-commerce dynamic.

Providing great advice ensures that customers:

• convert better,
• are less likely to contact your customer service,
• return products less often,
• can more easily distinguish you from the competition,
• are happy and return earlier and more often.

But...

(Yes, there is a but.)

Our apps, approach and vision are not suitable for every store. So be sure to read on to find out whether we're a good fit.

From products to problems

E-commerce has been around for twenty-five years. In these twenty-five years, the products were always the focus. The game was, and often is, offering the most products at the lowest price.

In large digital warehouses, the customer is received with a simple message: “Welcome, we have (almost) everything you need! Once you find what you're looking for, you can buy it in 30 seconds and we'll deliver within 24 hours. Good luck!”

With guided selling, we put the customer first and we make e-commerce human. We focus on the customer's how and why, instead of focusing on endless lists of spec-laden products.

With guided selling, we go from “you figure it out!” to "hi, how can I help you?".

With guided selling, we go from offering products to solving problems.

It sounds simple, but it isn't. And embracing this vision requires more than simply investing in guided selling software. So, what are the conditions for guided selling success - and for being successful with Aiden?

Condition #1: Vision

E-commerce is broken. We even wrote a book about it: Customers who aren't sure, won't buy. The problems are huge, so if you expect that adding a single product finder to a single category page will fix your entire e-commerce dynamic, you'll be in for a huge disappointment (and Aiden won't be the right fit for you).

Our most successful customers see that they need to play the e-commerce game differently to be successful in the long term. They start small (with that one product finder on that one page), but think bigger and share our vision: making great advice available for everyone. Not just a singe page somewhere in the back attic, but fully integrated into the customer journey. Only then will the quantitative product-price dynamic change.

Sharing this view is critical. Without it, our assistance and expertise, through which we guide online stores to build the best product finders, fall flat and our suggestions for e.g. additional placements aren't implemented. This is because a solid foundation - an understanding of the importance of guided selling - is missing.

If we subscribe to the same vision, then the sky is the limit. To illustrate: among the most successful customers, product finders are sometimes responsible for more than 25% of a store's entire revenue.

Do you share our vision? Then it's time for condition #2.

Condition #2: Execution

If you believe guided selling is critical to a future-proof e-commerce experience - for customers and stores - then you need to act accordingly. Because a shared vision is a must, but the key to success lies in the execution.

Stores that gain the most from guided selling are also the stores that invest the most in it. No, we don't mean paying a higher license fee - we mean systematically expanding the impact of the product finders by regularly reviewing three crucial questions:

• How can I improve the effect of my product finders?
• How can I improve the exposure of my product finders?
• How can I assess the impact of my product finders on my organization at large?

If you want to see a change, you have to be willing to put the time and effort into making it happen.

Aiden's goal and added value is, of course, that we minimize this time and effort, while maximizing the outcome. This is where our years of experience and pure focus on guided selling come in handy. After all, we know exactly what you need as an online store (functionality and features) and how you need to use these (operational playbooks) to make an impact in a fast and scalable way.

So: You share our vision, you understand the importance of execution, and...

Condition #3: Details matter

If 100% is achievable, 80% isn't good enough. A product finder that is used slightly less (80%), in which customers finish the flow slightly less often (80%), receive slightly lower quality advice and click through slightly less (80%) to make slightly fewer purchases (80%) doesn't result in an impact of 80%, but only 41% of the potential (and often even worse).

Advice is a very sensitive experience to consumers. Yes, they'd like to receive your help. But they're also critical of a self serving result. A thorough, transparent advice is fundamentally different. And the devil is in the details.

“Details” ensure that great advice is truly nuanced and personal. Not some filters presented in a conversational format (question-by-question) with the label product finder slapped onto it.

“Details” ensure that the impact of guided selling is measured accurately, easily and quickly in our Impact Dashboard versus the complex, slow and incomplete Google Analytics.

“Details” ensure that we continuously maximize our impact through A/B testing.

“Details” ensure that we don't stop at one type of interaction, but offer different types of integrations to make advice available in the moment that matters.

Our drive to truly make something better, combined with the experiences of 100+ stores and 1,000+ product finders, has made us realize that details aren't details. Details are critical in achieving a lasting impact versus a cute contribution. So that's why we only work with online stores that love details.

When not to choose Aiden

Do you expect guided selling to be a quick fix for your e-commerce problems?

Are you looking for someone who will tell you, and probably believes, that launching a single product finder will drastically improve your results? Are you looking for someone who views guided selling as a “fun addition” to an online store? Do you believe that 'OK' is totally OK?

Are you just looking for software and definitely not service?

Then Aiden isn't the right match for you and we'll happily point out several alternatives.

When to choose Aiden

You should definitely call us if you see, feel and experience that e-commerce can and should be improved.

If you believe that the e-commerce game, in which the major players (Google, Amazon, Bol) have online stores by their throats, requires a different approach, rules and experience.

If you believe that the solution is found in better assisting people, instead of shouting even more loudly.

If you want to feel that you are not alone, but that we'll tackle this challenge together.

And if you want to be supported by the best software and service in achieving this big goal. (From the ones that literally wrote the book on guided selling.)

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