🚲 Cortina leads the conversation from the bike shop and extends it online as well

Willem from Cortina has also now swapped his old “station barrel” for an electric one that he uses to zoom to work every day. He is certainly not alone, because more e-bikes than regular bicycles are now being sold in the Netherlands; a tipping point in our cycling history and culture. As a Digital Marketing Professional at Kruitbosch, it is his job to guide the customer to the right Cortina online, and that is still quite a challenge in the growing range. To offer customers a guide, Willem opts for Aiden's guided selling software. ‍

‍A picture can sometimes be worth a thousand words — but this is not always the case with e-bikes. Five bikes that look exactly the same can be completely different. “One has a mid-engine, the other has a front-wheel engine, and so there are many more options,” explains Willem. With the Cortina e-bike selection guide he prevents customers from losing the overview of the wide range. “I want to get away from the online grab bag. The product finder should ensure that our customers can easily find the right bike based on their needs. With that in mind, we built it.”

Willem doesn't want to bother his customers with technical stories about all kinds of complicated specifications. That is why, together with colleagues, he came up with a few simple questions to weigh and filter customer needs. “You also want to have the conversation in the bike shop online,” he emphasises. “For example, if the customer wants to use their bike for long tours, only the bikes with the right engine are included in the results.”

A product finder can also be used in other ways, for example as part of a creative campaign. With attractive videos, Cortina created stories about their most important e-bikes. Via the selection help on the landing page, you could playfully discover which bike suits you best based on those storylines. “It had a BuzzFeed-like approach with contradictions that people could choose from, a quick quiz actually,” explains Willem. “Honestly, I was surprised how many people had filled out that decision aid. That was good to see.”

For Willem, the user-friendliness of the app is one of the main reasons for choosing Aiden, but he also calls the customer insights very valuable. Willem: “We first built a product finder ourselves. This allowed me to see how often it was used, but not what it yielded in terms of conversion or which bikes our customers ultimately chose. With Aiden, that's possible.”

The information from the selection aid can also be useful for the team that designs the bikes, for example to slightly adjust certain assumptions. “In our campaign, we use quite a lot of color and our bikes are also available in many different colours. But the answers to the product finder show that the majority just wants a black bike,” Willem laughs.

Although customers often collect information about e-bikes online, research shows that they still prefer to go to an 'offline' bike shop before purchasing. Does the product finder really add value? Willem is clearly convinced and believes that the webshop should not be seen as a competitor to the dealer either: “I see it more as an interaction and don't think the bike shop will ever disappear. It often happens that people first look online and then go to the dealer. For us, it's just as good when people get inspired in the selection guide online and then immediately start looking at the right bike in the store.”

About Cortina

With a network of more than 1,000 retailers in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, Cortina is an international bicycle brand. The acclaimed range of bikes shows that a bike is more than just a mode of transport: it's also a way to express your personality and style.