The luxury retail experience online

Many luxury retailers invest enormous amounts of time and capital in creating content-rich, often beautiful websites but ultimately let themselves down through their interactions with their customers. No matter how slick or visually engaging your homepage may be, if a site has poor or, worse, no facilities for customers to find help or support, it is the equivalent of telling the customers in a luxury tailors to serve themselves and measure and cut their own suits. Customers get frustrated when they cannot complete an intended task or find the answers they are looking for; this can be down to poor site design or in the user's own inability to navigate. The most important principle to consider is that a customer will feel more respected if they think the retailer is trying to help and is available.

Even if there is not a dedicated customer feedback forum on the transactional site, that doesn't mean that one doesn't exist on third party sites such as MySpace or Facebook. Discussion will happen whether a retailer likes it or not and if you don't set up a community space, invariably your customers will. Nonetheless, even after setting up a forum it is most likely that your website will not be the only - or even necessarily the main - interface that shoppers will use to research and discuss your products. More and more we are witnessing the growth of so-called 'vertical' social shopping networks such as my-wardrobe.com, net-a-porter.com and iliketotallyloveit.com. These consist of product listings from users who recommend their favourites, often with a strong emphasis on the new.

If you don't engage with your customers on this level you run the risk of often inaccurate, uncorrected, negative feedback and consequent brand damage. It is worth considering that, typically, the majority of negative posts come from people who are happy with the product but unhappy with the service. If an online conversation is occurring about your service you cannot afford just to watch.

Retailers needs to consider that the people who view forums usually fall into two categories, those that are passionate about a product or service and, more importantly, those who are simply looking for help. Normally the people looking for help are those that have brought a product and don't understand it. Often they will be unaware that they can call a customer support number and find it easier simply to search for answers online. These customers will be looking for postings and responses from people that appear to be expert and passionate yet this exposes the fact that forums are inherently contradictory. The content can be extremely personal but the identity of the posters is usually hidden by impersonal usernames. Trying to ascertain the identity and qualifications of a poster can be an extremely difficult task and often a customer will be influenced by the poster who 'makes the most noise'. If a retailer doesn't look to answer queries on a post, someone else who is quite possibly misinformed or biased will. To provide a genuinely attentive service, support agents should use technology such as community management platforms and analytics to monitor forums and then offer advice in posts saying 'contact me and I'll help you' leaving a direct number and email address. Customers will see that this is a retailer genuinely prepared to give a personal service in a public forum.

Retailers should also recognise that though a customer may start their search on the web, there often comes a point when they want to speak directly to a customer service agent. Implementing 'click to call' functionality into your website will make it much easier for consumers to make the transition between the web and a call centre. The idea of involving a real person in the online buying process increases a shopper's confidence. It is also possible to implement unobtrusive and personalised recommendation tools on the site that can be just as effective as person-to-person interactions. Not only can these offer cross and up-sell opportunities but they can also be used to offer targeted customer service recommendations.

It is difficult to demonstrate the same charm online as a dedicated attendant could in-store but that doesn't mean that the customer experience has to be impersonal. To create an authentically lavish experience, you need to lavish your customers with attention.

Ian Davis is a Director at ATG