Zach Lonergan from Jackrabbit Sports shares how Salesforce Commerce Cloud helped them centralize storefronts and boost conversions. Three concrete tips: speed up checkout with predictive search and mobile wallets, personalize experiences using analytics and AI, and add fulfillment options like curbside pickup with shared inventory.
You glad you have some water there? Feel free to take a minute.
Yeah. All right.
We're still rolling.
Have some water.
Camera rolling.
Do you have another water there? I think you're running low.
I was afraid this would happen. Yes, please. Perfect. Thank you. I tried hydrating on the way over too.
You take a sip for every two questions.
All right, everybody hydrated. I'm just saying it's important. Let's get going. I'm Emmanuel Acho. The show is simply put, where we take intimidating business obstacles and knock them down with solutions that are, well, you know, these topics are tough, but I'll make sure everything is explained in straightforward terms. That's the simply put experience. Zach Lonergan builds experiences of his own in his role as director of digital UX at Jackrabbit Sports. We talked to him about building a UX that's made to last. We'll look at his expert advice with an assist from senior manager of product marketing over at Salesforce, Gurpreet Kaur. Zach.
I have three kids. My six year old sees Nike and Under Armour on the street and he says, daddy, that's your job. I am a people person at heart and I take pride in that. When we can help service our customers and get them into the right fit, technology allows us to have a better conversation with our customer. We want to try and make sure that all touch points within our marketing is dialed in and it's personalized and it makes sense to our customer. We want to make sure that they're getting to the right item as quickly as they can and converting something that I thrive on is how quickly we can change in our business. We have to be able to adapt quickly. We've seen that with the pandemic. We are small and nimble, but the ability to change very quickly within the space has allowed us a lot more success and growth. Our migration to the Salesforce Commerce cloud allowed our company to really scale in a whole new direction. One of the key successes that we've seen is our ability to manage each of our storefronts within one centralized backend of the website so our teams can quickly toggle between sites and make changes. We saw a significant increase in our conversion rate. Stability and security have been big pieces of those successes as well. Without the analytics, we would be shooting into the dark and we really wouldn't be able to enhance or optimize those experiences and journeys. The analytics is the core of our decision making and so it's important for all portions of our business to be tuned into the single source of Truth From a data and analytics perspective, we're really putting a lot of faith and trust into Salesforce to help us present the user experience and the customer flow as seamlessly as possible.
UX is so important and I want your experience here with our show to be positive. So take a minute, take a breath, think of a loved one, a great memory and get ready for Zach's action oriented steps for ux. With longevity, Gurpreet Kaur from Salesforce will jump in with tactics.
Simply put, these are my top three tips for building a future proof UX UX Number one Use your customers time wisely.
Good call Zach. Part of what makes an experience great is how wisely it uses our time. How can you account for this? First, look for ways to speed up the path to purchase. Try setting up predictive search. When a shopper starts typing in the search bar on your site, AI will automatically drop the terms in they're likely looking for. You can also offer mobile wallets at checkout. The more steps you remove in the purchase process, the more enjoyable it is and the lower your abandoned cart rate will be. It's simple, easy shopping experiences keep customers coming back.
Number two Experiences Start with analytics.
That's right, analytics are powerful growth drivers. Data related to Persona, location and interests can and should impact what a customer sees on your homepage. Do you use AI to sort products and make recommendations? It's a great way to pay off previous interactions and deepen relationships. Jackrabbit tailors their site based on a shopper's previous purchases and their interests. A longtime shopper might see products that support their marathon training. A new customer would see items for first time runners. These are the types of experiences that really move the needle. Simple, meaningful adjustments that are deeply rooted in purposeful analytics.
Number three Embrace, change and adapt.
What's the saying? Change is the only constant. You must continue to adapt your business for your customers. For example, you could open new fulfillment channels so customers can shop how they want. Jackrabbit started offering curbside and buy online pickup in store or as us Europeans call it, click and collect. But that's not as simple as flipping a switch. You need to adopt a shared inventory view across all of your stores. Shoppers have to be able to search availability by location. Employees need a view into each day's orders so they can notify customers when their order is ready. This is just one example of going beyond a great site experience to really adapt to your customers needs.
I am a very competitive person. I challenge my peers and I challenge my team, we want to make sure that we're pushing on each other. It's how we get better. I'm Zach Lonergan, and this is Simply Put.
That's all for this installment of Simply Put, but we're not done yet, so play the next video for more words of wisdom in plain language.
