ECommerce Best Practices

2006, Cognizant Technology Solutions. All Rights Reserved.
The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.

eCommerce
Best Practices
2
2006, Cognizant Technology Solutions. Confidential
Table of Content: Best Practices
User Account Management
Online Catalogue Management
Shopping Cart Management
Order Management
Customer Support Service
Online Marketing
Web Analytics
Best Practice Example
Best Practices
This document describes the Best
Practices Cognizant eCommerce
Practice collected, experienced and
deduced based on their expertise.

The document is organized as per the
Online Retail Business Map document.
3
4
User Account Management
Keeping The Process Simple And Surprise-Free
Letting users know what to expect.
Minimizing information collection upfront.
Explaining why the information is needed

Anticipating And Avoid Common
Obstacles; Keep users on track by:
Communicating value and benefits upfront.
Integrating clear error messages
Making it painless to forget a password.
Placing help where it might be needed.
5
Online Catalog Management Upgrades / Cross Sells
Making cross selling & up selling as
unobtrusive as possible
Relevant products Recommendations
Understand the user history
Understand browsing pattern previously
visited pages and items
Use analytics to find which products are
most likely to be purchased with others
Effective bundling is key

6
Allowing the user to select multiple items and
add them to the cart in a single click
Allowing the user to easily add/delete items
from cart even at the final stages of the order
processing phase
Displaying the shipping costs prominently
Supporting multiple shipping options
If it is an integration with a 3
rd
party the
terms and conditions regarding the liabilities
should be clearly mentioned
Suggesting additional purchases that might
interest the customer in a non-intrusive way

7
Including order and shipping history for
future reference (even for orders
abandoned midway) to allow users to
go back to them
Emailing customers who have
abandoned their shopping cart
Waiting for at least 48 hours
Sweetening the deal but avoiding being
predictable as it may lead to several
customers abandoning orders to get
discounts

8
Order Management
Eliminating steps in the checkout process where it makes
sense.
Letting shoppers know where they are in the process with a
progress indicator on each checkout page.
Letting shoppers see what they have selected already with
thumbnail images inside the shopping cart.
Allowing shoppers to edit their selections easily. Revising
color and size options of items in their cart should be painless.
When competing on price, offering price guarantees
Analysis of reasons of customers abandoning the shopping
cart
Offering them an incentive to complete an exit survey.
Visibility to the total cost (i.e. inclusive of the tax, packaging
and handling charges) at any time of the buying process
instead of being able to see the complete cost only at the end
of the transaction
Make the user aware that the transaction is happening over a
secure order processing system

9
Making the process as painless as the
purchase process
Using the opportunity to understand
why the customer decided to exercise
the option (generally disgruntled
customers provide more valuable
feedback)
Using analytics to find patterns for
users who ask for refunds

Order Management
Returns Management
10
Calculating TCO well in advance
Tracking Incidents
Buying instead of Building
Exploiting industry best practices
Maximizing scarce internal resources
Beneting from leveraged development
Integrating more easily
Reassessing Incident And Problem
Classification Categories
Measuring FCR & Abandon Rates From The
Customers Perspective
Moving Knowledge Bases From Static To Real
Time

11
Contact center interaction management
delivers consistent cross-channel
support
Integrates self-service into contact center
solution
Provides consistent services to customers
Supports traditional and IP contact centers
Links to customer support applications
Often integrates administration and
management features of self-service
applications
Dynamic data driven call resolution
Skill based routing of the cases created
12
Minimize Desktop applications to agents
360 degree view of the customers to avoid sifting
between various applications (reduce AHT & errors)
Integrate knowledge base & search function with
incident tracking system
Pull related ERP information as per requirement
Workflow Management:
Define clear escalation paths
Create & Manage workflows for pre defined service
issues
Continuously identify patterns of issues, which can
be automated or managed by workflows
Assignment of cases to have mixed scheduling of
multi skilled & single skilled agents
Universal queuing of requests to manage efficiently
13
Placement is often more important than content
Keeping the FAQ / Helpful links within easy reach and in
large fonts
A through run-through of the system by inexperienced
end users could provide leads on what and where to
place
A well designed system using a rich UI can be built
(somewhat similar to the Symantec Solution Center;
however, the user experience must be uniform)
Providing the option to talk to a human agent and not
making the user go through endless links
Track usage of FAQs to improve site design
FAQ / Knowledge Base
14
Gathering Requirements
Customers Need Assessment
Starting with the customer
Detailed surveys and questionnaires
Testing with select focus groups
Listening to customers beyond their original complaint
Large-scale surveys with multiple choice answers tend to
lead participants to a known solution
Open-ended questions or a wish list from frustrated users
can lead to true innovation.
CRM Strategy Integration
Involving representatives from every organization that
touches a customer
Enterprise-wide perspective on customer priorities
Design should augment existing CRM applications to
promote a more personalized experience for the customer.
Self Help System
15
Functionality, Usability and Goals
Understanding completely the core self-service requirements
your customers have
Focusing on the vital self-service functions; the 20 percent of
the universe of functions used by 80 percent of the self-
servers.
Delivering a well-designed self-service experience around the
key tasks
Making the site easy and intuitive to navigate
Continuously measure and evaluate self-service usability and
customer satisfaction.
Differentiating between high- and low-value customers, and
offer differentiated service
Incorporating breadcrumb navigation (text-based navigation
that shows where in the site hierarchy the currently viewed
web page is located)
Incorporating discussion forums into the site
RSS feeds
Self Help System
16
Functionality, Usability and Goals
Continuously tracking questions and user feedback,
across all channels,
Supporting "fail and bail"; should self-service be
inadequate
Providing and maintaining customer-friendly, accurate,
up-to-the-second current information that reflects user
self-service needs
Providing process transparency
Self service options
Publishing the IVR options in the customer touch points
to allow easier navigation
Currency: Dating the information and news to show how
current they are
Self Help System
17
Online Marketing
Making sure consumers who do not have coupon codes
do not feel they missed out
Providing a small question mark link next to it
explaining coupon codes, how they are issued, etc
Linking coupon codes to newsletters;
Consumers would be inclined to join the newsletter
Once they have a coupon code, they may actually want to
use it to buy a product
Consoling them that they arent in possession of a
coupon code this time around and encouraging them to
complete the purchase anyways
Doing it with flair and a sense of humor

18
Web Analytics
Analytics & Reports:
Providing differentiated service based on the customer value
(option of premium customer)
Standard efficiency reports
Creating custom built reports to follow the key metrics that would
affect the organization
Critically analyzing reports to track the effort spent on the
valuable customer
Tracking complaints reports vis-a-vis the Customer value
Multidimensional Service Operational Analysis
Three dimensional analysis of customer service providing
insight on operation effectiveness. In turn can aid in finalizing
the metrics
Predictive Analysis of Customer Value
Analysis of customer value & upgrade potentials through
predictive analytics features in Contact center solutions
Value based customer engagement Modeling technique
Proactive scheduling & executing customer care activities
Automatic design & generation of activity plans
19
Best Practice Example :
Dell
20
Best Practices: Rich user interface
Include maximum info using minimal space: reduces scrolling
No lag time to download information
Normal interfaces for non compatible systems
Auto detection of user location
21
Things to avoid: Inconsistent user experience
Inconsistent wording and tenses

22
Apple
23
Best Practices: Aesthetic look & feel
Clear, unambiguous & bold messaging
Well designed links in top panel occupying minimal space
Uncluttered page design

24
Best Practices: Consistent user experience
Use of peppy, informal messages and pix
Direct comparison with competitor: MS Windows
Using every page to reinforce brand image
25
Best Practices: Help user figure out actual
price
Calculate tax based on zip code
26
Best Practices: Page layout
Billing and shipping info fields in two panels thus reducing
scrolling and giving impression to user that amount of time and
effort required is less (contrast with McAfee)
27
Things to avoid:
Hiding your products in a corner
Difficult to find buy now links; only
available on certain pages
Clutter on page after clicking on buy
now (contrast with Amazon)
Placement of checkout on right panel
post clicking on add to cart button
(which is in the middle of page) leading
to user searching around for
confirmation (contrast with Amazon)
28
Amazon
29
Best Practices: Use of left panel
Relevant categories listed on left for easy navigation
30
Best Practices: Blending useful info with
promotions
Use of left panel for featured brands as well as categories
31
Best Practices: Relative positioning of info
vis a vis promotions
Provide relevant info first followed by promotion: helps users trying to navigate to particular areas who
may not be interested in that particular promotion
32
Things to avoid: Positioning of products
Norton Products: Coming in second row with names not visible; so may
not be clicked first
33
Best Practices: Product Info
Uncluttered page once user makes a selection; left panel vanishes thus providing
lesser distractions and more chance of user adding product to cart
34
Best Practices: use of screen space based on context
X / Upsell
Shopping cart confirmation: even though screen is cluttered; the confirmation
comes at same place where user had clicked last thus alleviating chances of
any confusion
1 click
checkout
35
Best Practice: Taking minimal info on
first regn. screen
Minimal info on starting page; no clutter on
screen
36
Best Practice: Options with default
values filled in accelerating process
Pre-checked radio button
37
Best Practice: Suggestions for error
resolution
Error message
highlighted
Remedy suggested in
same page
38
Best Practices: Helping users troubleshoot
Giving possible cause for error to help user resolve issue
39
Best Practice: Saving cart history including
abandoned orders
Saved items functionality which lets user reconsider buying product
by keeping items removed from cart in saved items section in
Shopping Cart
40
Best Practices: Personalized
Recommendations
Personalized recommendations based on shopping history
41
Best Practices: Collecting additional
information
Additional way of getting info: asking customer if he / she already owns /
is not interested in the recommended product
42
Best Practice Examples:
Symantec
43
Best Practice: Help customer navigate on
first page
FAQ Tech Support
Things to avoid: Title bar using
up too much space; contrast with
Apple; minimal space used while
preserving brand image
44
Best Practices: Include relevant info
45
McAfee
46
Best Practices: Support options
prominently displayed
47
Best Practices: Rich UI
Promotional offer popping up via rich UI (does not need to reload)
Also, this happens on adding to cart instead of being displayed at the very beginning
giving user a pleasant surprise and reinforcing desire to complete purchase
48
Things to Avoid: Less emphasis on
products
Products given least
emphasis
Distractions
49
Things to Avoid: Importance to freebies
Free Product given primary importance distracting user from
paid ones
50
Things to avoid: Placement of cart
Shopping Cart at bottom of page; greater chance for user changing his mind
51
Things to avoid: Page layout
Registration information too cluttered and too much scrolling required
52
Trend Micro
53
Things to Avoid: Wastage of space
Best Practice: Prechecked option prompting customers to buy highest
value option
Wasted space at side and top with page content being really long leading
to lots of scrolling
54
Things to Avoid: Too much
information in one page
FAQs buried at bottom of page
Too few characters allowed in address field
55
Things to avoid: Small text size in
useful links;
Little spacing between lines making searching for an item slightly difficult
56
Thank you

ECommerce Best Practices

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2006, Cognizant Technology Solutions. All Rights Reserved.

The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.

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