Office Depot: Engaging With Customers To Improve Multichannel Sources
By Megan Zielinski, contributing writer
Company incorporates customer feedback into website changes, sends personalized messages
Office Depot has a goal of delivering exceptional service when customers enter the store — whether physically or virtually. “Customers want us to care about them as individuals,” says Kevin Moffitt, VP of eCommerce strategy, Office Depot.
Over the past 18 months, Office Depot has renovated its virtual store, updating its website based on customer feedback and satisfaction survey results. The company’s e-commerce team found by making small site adjustments to the company homepage, customers didn’t have to deal to reorienting themselves to a new design. The resulting webpage is visually inviting, easier for customers to navigate. Customers also respond well to the site’s around-the-clock chat and support.
Office Depot also started sending personalized emails to customers, recommending products based on past purchases. These personalized emails perform 700 percent better than generic emails.
In the past year, Office Depot continued enhancing the customer experience with improvements to the company’s mobile app. “We’ve invested heavily in making sure our mobile channels are as simple to use as our desktop channels,” said Moffitt. The updated app contains a built-in UPC barcode scanner — providing customers the convenience of scanning and adding products to their shopping carts, looking up product availability, and reviewing product information and reviews. The app also allows customers to sync with their online accounts. Users have access to their rewards accounts, earning loyalty points for purchases made through the app. Coupons and promotion codes can be saved and scanned at the point of sale at the store. The app even alerts users of the ink level in their personal HP printer and provides the information of what type of ink cartridge to buy.
Employees, now using mobile POS, also have access to the same product information as shoppers, to enable them to be just as informed as the customer and to provide better assistance. Office Depot also uses its mobile POS system as a training device for new employees.
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By heeding and relying on customer input, Office Depot is making strides to improve the quality and function of its multichannel system. Moffitt comments, “All marketers need to think about customers not as an ID number, but as individuals.”