Customer Journeys Are Easy to Build with Predictive Merchandiser

Employees aren’t there to guide you through new experiences online. There shouldn’t be a learning curve for first-time customers to find what they need. A quarter of shoppers will leave the site and look for products and information elsewhere if their search results draw a blank. Katie Boschele, Lucidworks Product Manager, and Tom Allen, Lucidworks Director, of Commerce Applications explain how to build out a best-in-class customer journey that keeps shoppers engaged and delighted.

Check out the full presentation here:

The Beginning of Your Customer Journey: Build Out Landing Pages

Tom used the example of a first-time boat buyer. Let’s say a shopper does a Google search for ‘fire extinguisher’ because they know that they’ll need one for their boat. When they end up on your website, you know that delivering the product that matches their query is important. But there’s another step that many retailers miss. Your website should also return results for complementary products and relevant content, including an article that tells boat owners what the U.S. Coast Guard would require for recreational vessels.

If you’re just showing products on your landing pages, you’re missing critical opportunities to sell more varied types of products.

Lucidworks Predictive Merchandiser (PM) makes it easy to build these types of experiences. Tom explained the process in three easy steps:

1. Index non-product content, including how-to guides, product videos, and DIY advice
2. Create rules in PM to trigger the content in natural search results
3. Apply machine learning and manual rule curation

Expanding Experiences: Optimize Product Detail Page Descriptions

Some shoppers don’t start with an online search. Katie Boschele uses the example of a shopper who sees an article in a digital fashion magazine that takes her on a hunt for a specific style of dress. Katie shares that for the non-fashion forward shopper, having a “How To Wear It” banner at the bottom of the product detail page can help shoppers curate the perfect outfit. Plus, it increases AOV for retailers who recommend pre-built looks for shoppers.

The Predictive Merchandiser templating engine allows merchandisers to create a digital fashion look book that takes single items and creates statement looks. Brands can also fill the product description page with articles, recommendations, and other details. Here’s how retailers can optimize their product detail pages with PM:

1. Build multi-zone product discovery templates
2. Add smart recommendations to automatically populate detail pages
3. Build look-book templates

Keep the Journey Going: Go Beyond Product Content

Home improvement DIY projects increased dramatically in 2020 due to COVID-related lockdowns. Brands like Lowe’s and Home Depot have become experts at creating useful how-to content for their shoppers. Shoppers come looking for help on their project, but they also want to be directed to the product that they may need to complete it. Customers want the research and shopping experience to be as convenient as possible.

Create quality guides and ensure they lead to discovery of more products. Deliver non-product content pages to help shoppers find answers on a project and include step by step instructions, tools, and required products so they can easily discover and purchase new products. With Predictive Merchandiser you have the option to mix and match templates for landing page, home page, and product detail page templates to best serve your unique customer.

1. Easily build multi-zone templates with Predictive Merchandiser’s templating engine, without any technical expertise or the development team
2. Index related articles and guides
3. Use recommender zones to link content to products and suggest articles to the category page

Discover Your Journey

Predictive Merchandiser intuitively lets merchandisers control the regions on each page. This Fusion add-on is made from the ground up to be easy-to-use for merchandisers. You can see search results in real time, make changes, and see those changes happen live. If you’re already familiar with Fusion, you can think of Predictive Merchandiser as the important next step beyond search.

Learn how to build your customer’s journey with Predictive Merchandiser. Contact us today.