Doctors Foster and Smith’s Gordon Magee on Meeting Customers’ Expectations Online
June 2008 By Hallie Mummert
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Last month, research firm ForeSee Results announced the outcome of its Spring 2008 Top 100 Online Retail Satisfaction Index. Moving up from a fifth-place overall finish in the last rankings to No. 4 in the most recent release is the e-commerce site for Doctors Foster and Smith, the Rhinelander, Wisc.-based multichannel marketer of pet supplies and pharmaceuticals. The firm’s site also took top honors in the Specialty/Nonapparel subcategory.
Target Marketing Tipline called on Gordon Magee, Doctors Foster and Smith’s Internet marketing and analysis manager, to learn some of his company’s tricks of the trade for improving the online shopping experience for customers.
Target Marketing: What do today’s consumers look for in an e-commerce Web site?
Gordon Magee: The normal thing that anyone would look for—whether it was in e-commerce, or at a retail store or in a catalog—is simple ease of use. Can I find what I’m looking for; can I find information about what I’m looking at; and can I buy it conveniently? And then there are the ancillary things that go along with that: Is there additional support available if I can’t get my precise question answered with the material in front of me? There may be great information, but I might have a nuance of a question that I need to ask somebody about. Can I get on a chatline, or can I get on the phone and get an answer quickly—and an accurate answer? And so, it’s the commonsense things that you would want from any shopping experience that need to exist on the Web site.
TM: How does DrsFosterSmith.com respond to these expectations?
GM: By having an ongoing, literally daily, evaluation of everything that we do on the Web site. It’s the continuous measurement of what we’re doing so that it makes sense for the customer.
And then I think related to that, in a less siloed company, it’s easier to deal with [necessary changes]. In other words, if you’re dealing with too much corporate structure that’s involved in making changes to your Web site, it makes things more complicated because it takes a long time. There needs to be a streamlined structural process so that decisions can be made, in many respects, literally on the spot: “This is a problem; we need to change it; change it now.” And it gets changed in five minutes. Other things take longer because there’s programming involved or images that have to be built and so on, but even those need to happen in an environment where decisions can be made both responsibly and quickly. You need to have input from the appropriate sources—marketing, merchandising, creative, IT—all those need to blend together. But then there needs to be the ability to respond, because if there’s anything about the Internet that’s unique, it’s the instant nature of it. It’s live, and when you change things, people know right away.
Target Marketing Tipline called on Gordon Magee, Doctors Foster and Smith’s Internet marketing and analysis manager, to learn some of his company’s tricks of the trade for improving the online shopping experience for customers.
Target Marketing: What do today’s consumers look for in an e-commerce Web site?
Gordon Magee: The normal thing that anyone would look for—whether it was in e-commerce, or at a retail store or in a catalog—is simple ease of use. Can I find what I’m looking for; can I find information about what I’m looking at; and can I buy it conveniently? And then there are the ancillary things that go along with that: Is there additional support available if I can’t get my precise question answered with the material in front of me? There may be great information, but I might have a nuance of a question that I need to ask somebody about. Can I get on a chatline, or can I get on the phone and get an answer quickly—and an accurate answer? And so, it’s the commonsense things that you would want from any shopping experience that need to exist on the Web site.
TM: How does DrsFosterSmith.com respond to these expectations?
GM: By having an ongoing, literally daily, evaluation of everything that we do on the Web site. It’s the continuous measurement of what we’re doing so that it makes sense for the customer.
And then I think related to that, in a less siloed company, it’s easier to deal with [necessary changes]. In other words, if you’re dealing with too much corporate structure that’s involved in making changes to your Web site, it makes things more complicated because it takes a long time. There needs to be a streamlined structural process so that decisions can be made, in many respects, literally on the spot: “This is a problem; we need to change it; change it now.” And it gets changed in five minutes. Other things take longer because there’s programming involved or images that have to be built and so on, but even those need to happen in an environment where decisions can be made both responsibly and quickly. You need to have input from the appropriate sources—marketing, merchandising, creative, IT—all those need to blend together. But then there needs to be the ability to respond, because if there’s anything about the Internet that’s unique, it’s the instant nature of it. It’s live, and when you change things, people know right away.
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