Decoding the Customer Journey Through Research
Guest: Peter Murphy Lewis
This dynamic entrepreneur took a leap into the South American business world, conquering the media landscape with notable achievements like working at CNN and hosting his very own TV show. Now, as a highly successful marketing consultant and podcast host, he brings his expertise to the forefront, shedding light on the captivating realm of the customer journey and the transformative power of qualitative and quantitative research.
Here's a snapshot of the key insights shared:
Importance of Understanding the Customer Journey: The conversation emphasises the critical role of understanding the customer journey in eCommerce. From the first interaction with your brand to the post-purchase experience, every touchpoint shapes customer perception and decision-making. Recognising and optimising these moments can significantly enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Engaging with Customers for Deeper Insights: One of the primary strategies discussed is directly engaging with customers through phone calls or surveys to understand their needs, preferences, and perceptions. This engagement is not just about gathering data, but about asking the right questions that reveal what customers truly value, their pain points, and what they are willing to pay more for. This can lead to better product offerings, pricing strategies, and overall customer experience.
Balancing Objectives with Potential Negative Outcomes (Anti-objectives): The concept of anti-objectives was introduced, highlighting the importance of considering potential negative outcomes while pursuing business objectives. For instance, while aiming for higher revenue or sustainability, one should also consider the impact on customer perception, operational stress, or brand image. Understanding and planning for these potential negatives can lead to more sustainable and long-term growth.
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Matt Edmundson: [00:00:00] Well, hello and welcome to The eCommerce Podcast with me, your host, Matt Edmundson. This podcast is all about helping you deliver eCommerce wow. And to help us do just that, today I am chatting with my very special guest, Peter Murphy Lewis from Strategic Pete, which is one of the most memorable names we've had for a little while, Strategic Pete.
We're going to be talking about decoding the customer journey through research. And of course, before we get into that Let me tell you about the newsletter which we send out every week. If you're a regular listener to the show, just go sign up. Go to ecommercepodcast. net or even if you're a new listener, go check it out.
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This is a membership group for all you eCommercers out there. If you're like me and you're involved in the world of eCommerce. I do this podcast which is awesome but I also run eCommerce businesses because that's awesome as well. Do a bit of eCommerce coaching and so we decided, you know what, we should set up a little, a little group for all us eCommercers called eCommerce Cohort.
Come and join in. We have expert workshops every month, delivered by experts, which is always, which is why we call them expert workshops I suppose, uh, which is great all around the topics of eCommerce plus one of the key bonuses, you get to watch me. Record these podcasts live, we live stream them into the Cohort, so we'll tell you in the newsletter who's coming up, you get to come in, watch and ask the guests your questions.[00:02:00]
Uh, which is just wonderful. Well, I ask them, you put it in the comments and I ask them, you don't actually come onto the show. Let's just be super clear. Uh, but you get the chance to ask the guests the question, so check that out @ecommercecohort.com. It'd be great to see you in there. Okay, so. Let's talk about today's guest.
This dynamic entrepreneur took a leap into the South American business world, conquering the media landscape with notable achievements like working at CNN, no less, and hosting his very own TV show. Now as a highly successful marketing consultant and podcast host, Oh, it's nice to talk to a fellow podcaster.
He brings his expertise to the forefront, shedding light on the captivating realm of the customer journey and the transformative power of qualitative and quantitative research. Yes. There's, there's two words aren't easy to say together, I've just realized. Qualitative and quantitative research. Peter, great to have you on the show, man.
Been looking forward to this one. How are we [00:03:00] doing today,
Peter Murphy Lewis: good sir? Wonderful, really excited to, uh, chat about customer journey and quantitative and qualitative also a challenging word, it's, um,
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, absolutely, it's funny, isn't it? We'll just call it the Q& Q, uh, data, QQ data, we'll abbreviate it, maybe. Uh, so how did you, um, well, let me ask you a little, uh, more obvious question first.
Whereabouts in the world are you? Today I'm
Peter Murphy Lewis: in Wichita, Kansas in the middle of the U. S. I spend about four to six months out of the year in South America and the rest of the time somewhere in the U. S. but my home base is inside of a zoo and I'm not joking. I live inside of a zoo in Wichita, Kansas.
Matt Edmundson: My mum used to say my bedroom was like a zoo but I'm not sure that's what you
mean.
I think you mean a proper zoo.
Peter Murphy Lewis: It's true, I have zebras that are about 20 metres from my kitchen
Matt Edmundson: window. No way, that's awesome. So you're like, um, what was that movie, So We Bought A Zoo with Matt Damon, you're like the [00:04:00] personification of that guy, right?
Peter Murphy Lewis: I'm like the fat version of that.
Matt Edmundson: How did you end up owning a zoo?
Peter Murphy Lewis: I didn't actually buy it, I, uh, the story's Interesting, in 2019, I was running a pretty successful travel online business in South America and there was some civil unrest that happened in October of 2019 and it was so powerful that they burned down 43 subway stations in one night.
And I called my business partner on day two and I said, you need to get back to Santiago. I think we're going to have to close down. Our four offices in four different cities, close down all of our brands, sell our inventory and lay off about 50 teammates. And he came back and we made that decision. And then about three weeks later, my wife and my son and I, uh, left that country and moved back to the U S and when I was backpacking around, around the United States with my three year old at the time, I visited the zoo and the owner of the [00:05:00] zoo called me a month later and said, will you come take over the marketing?
Department for six months as an interim director. So I created the marketing team and helped scale that. Wow.
Matt Edmundson: Wow. And that's amazing.
Peter Murphy Lewis: You got to do that. And they gave me a house. Well,
Matt Edmundson: thank you very much. Uh, absolutely. Uh, that's awesome. And what amazing memories for your son. Uh, I mean, that's not especially in the middle of COVID.
Oh yeah. Jeez. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's not a usual thing to do as a kid, but that's awesome. That's really cool. So you're living at the zoo. I take it.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Yeah, it's fantastic. I can't imagine leaving whenever my wife's like, maybe we should buy a house. And I said, is the house going to have zebras in its front yard?
I said, let's hold off on that mortgage. I'm fine here.
Matt Edmundson: Why do I need to do that? Why do I need a mortgage? That's incredible. So you're sort of split between the States and between South America. You're currently in Wichita, Kansas. Um, [00:06:00] and Uh, which is right in the middle, isn't it? From memory. Uh, I've actually been to Wichita.
I have been to Kansas a couple of times, but I remember seeing it on a map. Uh, so I've got a sort of vague idea of where it is. Um, and so you've obviously been in marketing a little while. I mean, you've been marketing zoos and companies in South America, so you've You've had a few things that you've, have you always been involved in that sort of thing?
Peter Murphy Lewis: You know, my first company was in 2007 and my business partner and I didn't have any previous experience. I'd never worked in marketing, neither. So we just kind of fell into what was natural. You know, he did the, he did. The website I created, you know, kind of the customer journey and our marketing and our, and our copy and then our products and so forth.
And then he eventually took over operations and HR and I stayed in marketing and sales and, uh, we grew that quickly, uh, into three different brands and then kind of got into. I got into TV and then got into fractional CMO work. And since basically this [00:07:00] 2007, I kind of built my career around marketing with having it without any experience.
And I, I attribute that to the topic that I think we're going to talk about, which is understanding your customer. And that goes back, Matt, to the fact that I studied sociology in undergrad and my first job out of college was. Creating surveys for a national survey, I believe is around re religion and values.
And so, uh, I wasn't a particularly religious person, uh, but I had to learn how to ask questions in semi-structured interviews to determine how. belief systems were changing in the U. S. and this was 2002, and I really think that that fundamental kind of, uh, 101 into how to understand how people think when they don't know how to say what they think and believe helps me today in the eCommerce space.
Matt Edmundson: No doubt. I mean, how old were you when you were doing those sort of surveys? So this was 20
Peter Murphy Lewis: years ago. I was 21, [00:08:00] 22. Yeah.
Matt Edmundson: What an introduction to sort of that. I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? Because you're just, you're a young lad starting out in the workforce. The same age as my son, ironically. And there are certain things that I think are good things to do at that sort of age.
Sales would be one of them, but this is all, because you're learning how to talk to people. You're learning how to draw information out of them. And they're sort of life skills you don't really get taught, uh, in school. And so I imagine, um, this was quite, quite eye opening in a lot of ways?
Peter Murphy Lewis: Very much so, very much so.
And I think what was, what was eye opening about it is walking into the job, you think that coming up with questions is going to be easy, but coming up with questions that people Don't know even how to answer and you then have to interpret those answers into something that is close to, uh, qualitative.
All of this [00:09:00] evidence that you could at least form a hypothesis around was a challenge. And then my, my, my second job isn't much further than that. Although people be like, you know, that's social work, that social work. My next job was I worked with the homeless population. Speaking Spanish. So Spanish speaking, homeless population that had AIDS in Boston.
And I had to. Help them help themselves. And so understanding homeless people is different for me. I've never been homeless. Understanding Latino, illegal, non documented. Immigrants is not my background. And then understanding people with AIDS. So learning how to ask questions was, you know, kind of the first three years of my professional life before I became a marketer.
Matt Edmundson: Wow, what a foundation. Um, I mean, I sound, they both sound like pretty tough, hard jobs, but I mean, almost what a gift, you know, in terms of Uh, the, the stuff that you would have learned from that. So let's fast forward then 20 years. Let's take all the learning that you've, you've had and what an introduction, [00:10:00] um, and let's sort of throw this into the, the topic of eCommerce, um, if we can, uh, let's start at the top.
Customer journey. Just explain what it is, what you mean by that and, and why we should care.
Peter Murphy Lewis: I thought about the definition before we jumped on, and I said, should I Google it, or should I just go with what comes from the gut? And I didn't Google it, even though I've never formally been trained. I said, for me, It's basically the process where someone comes in touch with your brand and you follow them from the first time they hear about you or they need you or think about you until they decide they're done with you.
And that may never end if they're a happy customer, the customer journey never ends. Um, and it may end really quickly if. Your first impression is bad. If you're bad at ads, if you spend [00:11:00] all your money on ads, instead of thinking about your brand, uh, if you don't listen to them and they walk away. So, uh, it's kind of, it's kind of the first impression until they're done with you is the way that I would describe it to like my dad.
Matt Edmundson: That's a really, it's a very, I mean, I can get my head around that. I understand that it's not complex. And what I like about it, Peter, is there's no three letter acronyms. Uh, in the middle of it, which we, we love in, in eCommerce, really. Yeah, we overuse those. That's way too many. Um, so the customer journey then, from first impressions until the grave, fall into a better expression.
That whole time that they spend with you. Um, and obviously different customers have different lengths of journeys with you, different experiences and so on and so forth. Uh, and I mean, it's an obvious statement to make. Um, and I guess in some respects, this is a silly question. But again, I don't want to make any assumptions here.
Why should I care about that as an eCommerce entrepreneur? [00:12:00] Surely, and I, I have been asked this question many times. There's a reason why I'm asking, because there is a belief in some circles where it's just like, I don't care about the customer journey. I want them in, I want to sell them stuff and I want them gone because it's a high volume business.
You know, the customers come and go.
Peter Murphy Lewis: I think that. I think that, you know, any founder or CTO or customer support or VP of Revenue should care about this because one, the more advocates you have of your brand, your product, your service, the less you spend on ads. So right away, there's a. ROI, there's a return on investment that's just basic understanding.
You can maximize profits, um, even just with that one person, right? So if you're paying attention to what they want more of and what they're willing to pay more for, you're, you're making more and you know, like I usually. Usually the thing that I walk [00:13:00] into as a consultant, the first thing that I see that's kind of a blind spot for founders or CEOs or executives, is they haven't talked to their customer in a long time.
As you grow, you get it. 2, 3, 4, unfortunately, sometimes five steps or layers away from your customer and, and people often think your customer once they've purchased. So like you wanna see the survey afterwards. I'm talking about the survey when that you asked them how they first heard about you. Mm-Hmm.
So like I have, I have a, um, a new client that I'm working with. today. And, you know, he says, what's, what's the first thing that you want to do? Do you want to interview my team? Do you want to, you know, look at my, uh, profit, my profit loss? I said, no, no, no. Just every single new customer you have that purchases, whether it's their 49 product or their 4.
99 product. I said, I want, To be on the phone call and we're going to act like it's a chargeback service, or we're going to act [00:14:00] like it's a customer support. And then I just want to ask them two or three questions. And then you got to do that every stage along the way with the person who refunds, the person who returns and so forth.
And I just think if you set that system up, um, you're, you're, you're setting your system, your, your company up for success in the longterm after you do it for, you know, the first three months, I think you can go back to doing it once a year. It's not any different than, you know, I've, I've heard the story that Jeff Bezos, uh, makes every single customer, every single employee work one week out of the year in customer service.
I don't really think it's any different than that. You should think about your customer journey at least once a year.
Matt Edmundson: So I, I couldn't agree more, um, uh, on the whole customer journey thing for, for a number of reasons, which I'm sure we're going to get into. Um, I'm intrigued by. This is your, you're going into a new company.
Your first response is not to talk to the staff, it's talk to the customers, which I, I actually quite like. That's quite nice. Um, did I understand it right that you're doing those calls with the [00:15:00] CEO or you're, you're doing them solo?
Peter Murphy Lewis: If the CEO has time, I would love to have them join. Normally they're too busy.
If they're bringing, they're bringing me in to help with something, you know, they're either putting out fires or they're letting people go or they're trying to scale a team and they don't have time. If they will, I would love them to. But I do record them and then I highlight those options and I go through their case studies and do new case studies.
But like right now with this new client, I'm just doing it essentially with their, their customer support rep to make sure that we're not getting chargebacks and so forth.
Matt Edmundson: Okay, um, what do you mean by a chargeback?
Peter Murphy Lewis: You know, like, uh, people who will sign up for the product and then they'll use it for seven days.
They'll download, uh, free data or download the service and then, uh, they'll tell their, their American Express card, Hey, I didn't pay for this. I didn't want this. Or they'll, they'll, they'll fight it.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. Um, so. You're calling new customers. So you get five new customers that day.
You're on the phone with them, regardless of what [00:16:00] they purchased. And then you said, you're asking them two or three questions. Everybody listening to this has gone, what are those two or three questions you're asking them?
Peter Murphy Lewis: Yeah. So I usually go in. with a bigger objective. So I try to ask the executive team, I said, how certain on a scale of 1 to 100 are you that you are charging the right price for A product, B product, C product, you know, D product.
And generally, you know, They'll say 80 or 90 percent on one, 50 percent um, uh, confident on another. So I'll go into especially the products where they aren't confident and I will assume that they are undercharging right away. That there's something that the customer would be willing to pay 2, 3, 4x. And so my first questions will seem pretty basic kind of 101 sociology, but about my fifth question is going [00:17:00] towards the pricing.
So my first question would be like, you know, uh, how did you first hear about us? And then I'll shut up and don't give them options. You know, like this is, this is, this is something that HubSpot will teach you over and over. Don't force your new customers to tell you, um, how they heard about you so you could put it into an Excel.
Thank you. Yeah. Take an open ended answer, and I do that, and then the next question is, why did you decide to reach out, either contact us or buy us? What was the decision? What, what, what was the number one reason? You have to use the word, what was the number one reason that you decided to buy? And then, then from there, it becomes a lot more, uh, loose ended.
And from there, I'll ask why, why, why, and what was it about? How did you hear about that feature? Um, where did, who do you compare us against? But my last question would be like, What is one thing that's inside of our product that you've seen so far that you wish you either, that you wish you had, or that you wish that it was better, that would make your job [00:18:00] easier?
Um, and then they say, they usually have something in mind and then I'll say, how much more would you be willing to pay for that? And then they'll tell you right there. They'll tell you right there. And then the very next thing you do is you take that information, you test it in ads, you test it in cold email, you test it on your eCom platform, you create a different name of a product for the exact same thing, charge the price, but include that new element.
Now you have also ideas for tiers for pricing. So Matt, I, I did this with, with um A membership client that I have that sells memberships, uh, annual memberships for a product that's about $49 a year. And I walked in and I said, you know, like your NPS score is through the roof. Like everybody loves everything.
You're, you're definitely under charge. He said, no, if you do that, we're gonna have chart churn, then we're gonna have people complaining online. People are gonna complain on our community. And I said, now I have this feeling that, you know, 20% of your customers. 10 percent of your customers be willing to pay more.
We did [00:19:00] this process that I'm explaining with you. Then we, we did it with about 20 calls, 15 calls, and then we turned it into a survey on Google forms. We didn't have to pay for anything expensive. We didn't go type form. We just did simple Google forms following the exact same system. And now we have a VIP subscription service that sells for 299.
One day out of the year, and it sells out. Wow. And those were people that we were charging 49 for two, you know, two years ago.
Matt Edmundson: That's incredible, isn't it? So this is 299. So you've six, six fold increase on the price just because you called the customers and ask questions. And I assume that the difference between the two memberships was pretty straightforward to deliver.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Other deliverability is essentially the same because, especially because about 50 percent of the people don't even use their membership. They don't log in, they don't ask for calls. So I mean, [00:20:00] you just, you just went from 49 to 299 and still half your people don't use your product.
Matt Edmundson: Wow. That's incredible.
Yeah. Fascinating. And all this stems because you asked the customer the question rather than just assuming, um, or rather, I think one of the cop outs that I guess I see a lot, um, at the moment is There's a lot of conversation about interpreting data, right, letting data guide decisions. So you split test, you let data to guide decisions.
So you start off with a hypothesis, you throw it out there. Did A beat B? Yes or no? Uh, if it did, great, let's run it. If it didn't, let's keep what we've got. And we like that because one, it's quantitative, um, yeah, it's not working, is it? Um, And two, I think it requires, in some respects, less effort because I don't have to talk to the client.
I think a lot of people get into eCommerce so they don't actually have to talk to the end client. I agree
Peter Murphy Lewis: 100%.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, so here you are [00:21:00] telling people to talk to the end client. I just wonder how many people listening to this show are just breaking out into a cold sweat right now. But there's, there's some very real benefits to doing that.
One of which you've just highlighted with that membership company.
Peter Murphy Lewis: I would tell them if they're terrified of doing that, don't worry. Call a 20 year old sociologist who's taken two years of sociology classes and they can listen to this, transcribe it and do it for you.
Matt Edmundson: Go get a student. That's, uh, that's what we tend to say. We say that a lot in our office. We need someone to do this. I was going to go get a student. We live in a student town. So, um, students are great, you know, and, uh, well, most of the time they're great. Um, so I'd like to go get a 20 year old sociologist student.
Is this, so let's take a few different companies and let's think about how this could work practically. Um, Peter, so the companies you are going into, like that membership company are gonna be what I would call an SMB, a small, medium sized business, right? They're gonna [00:22:00] have anywhere, I guess from five to 20 employees, something around that.
They're gonna be turning over. I guess half a million up to sort of five million online, right? So, um, in those size companies, you're, you're talking to and you're training the customer service staff. Is that right?
Peter Murphy Lewis: I'm not really training. I'm just joining the first phone calls with them. And then I'm taking that information, which is very qualitative, right?
Like I couldn't prove anything on it. I couldn't write a master's thesis on it. But If, if you're intuitive, if you have some emotional intelligence, you can take that information and take it back to the CEO and say, some changes need to be done. Like if you take to him 10 calls where five of them say, Hey, You know, I would pay 3x for this feature and then you say to him, then you say to him, like, um, how hard is it for you to deliver this feature?
And he goes, not hard at all. Well, now you got his attention, right? So, and then customer service is, can then be trained to take that, [00:23:00] you know, that initial process into something that could be checked quarterly, um, or once a year type of thing, but you've run from there and then you start designing new.
Prices and programming around that initial customer journey. And then you go back and, and you go back and you check it again.
Matt Edmundson: Okay. Um, so let's talk about then the small business. So what, a couple of the young married couple, they're doing a side hustle, they're working on the kitchen table. Two hours of an evening before they crash out on the couch.
Um, how, how would you, how, how should they approach this type of thing? I would,
Peter Murphy Lewis: I would start off if they don't have much time, I would start off by asking them, Do you have an idea when you have A happy customer, a happy buyer, um, over your unhappy customers, either they were on your page for [00:24:00] 10 minutes and they purchased right away, or they added two things to their cart faster than anybody else.
And everyone has kind of like, yeah, I think that is, I said, okay, are you, then are you willing to give them half of that product back if they'll spend 20 minutes with you on the phone? Yeah, of course. If that information is going to help you sell more, you know, either sell more volume, improve your margins, whatever that is, increase your revenue, whatever it is.
And I would just start with that. If they have two hours on a Thursday and two hours on a Sunday, do two calls. And give that person something back that they put in their cart and try to figure out why that person is hyper happy and why they came to you and then find a way to uniquely, creatively ask them what they would be willing to pay more for.
Of course, those first questions, right? How did they hear about you? Why did they choose you? Who else did they shop around with? How were they solving the problem before they met you?
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no, it's very critical questions.
Peter Murphy Lewis: I've got one other thing that, [00:25:00] and this might not apply, you know, to your neck of the woods, nor the U.
S., um, because Starbucks has been around long enough that we might not remember what life was like before Starbucks. But myself, coming from South America, when I first moved to South America in 2023, there was no Starbucks. So I lived in a world where I went and sat at a coffee shop, sat down at a table, Someone brought a menu over to me, then left me for 15 minutes, came back over, asked me what I wanted, then brought me back a coffee in 15 minutes.
Never knew my name, charged me 4 for a coffee. And that, and it took me 30 minutes and it was loud. And there were people smoking around, the bathrooms weren't clean. Starbucks, people complain about paying. The 4 for a cup of water, a hot cup of water, but from what I think they did from the customer journey point of view is they thought about what is the most expensive ongoing cost that a coffee shop [00:26:00] has.
And it's their real estate. People are sitting down and waiting for their coffee to be delivered for 30 minutes. And they've removed that and they make you go stand at a counter and then they, and you're still willing to pay the same amount of money. So you also need to ask in your question, what is the one thing that you least care about in my service or my product that I'm giving you and determine how expensive it is and remove it.
This is not just about adding things on in the customer service. This is also removing.
Matt Edmundson: That's really interesting because you're right. I think it's not like you say, it's not just about what you add, it's what you can take away, isn't it? And what you. Um, what you're doing that currently is not working. I think I've mentioned this before on EP, I've definitely mentioned it on podcast before, and I've been on so many, I just can't remember who I've told this to.
So if you're, if I'm repeating myself, dear listeners, I'm terribly sorry. [00:27:00] Um, but I'm, I'm thinking of the The time when we had a, at the time we had a beauty company and we sold beauty products, well known branded beauty products. And we, we looked at what our competitors were doing and they would send out the products in a jiffy bag.
A padded envelope, I don't know if you call them Jiffy Bags, we call them Jiffy Bags, but um, in these sort of padded envelopes, they got, they got sent out. And so we were like, well, let's just do one better. Let's send everything out in an actual box so that, you know, it just feels a bit more ostentatious, I suppose, a bit more premium, a bit more, uh, you know, like I've, I've cared.
And actually when you get your skincare products. The boxes themselves that they come in are much more likely not to get bashed up. Even though I know you're going to take them out of the box and just throw them straight in the bin, you still want them to look good before you throw them in the bin, right?
And so we sent them out in the box. That was one of our sort of differentiation points. And then we started talking to clients. [00:28:00] And we started asking them about why they bought skincare. Why? Because the, the average order on our website was let, let's say it was about 80 books, right? About $80, 80, 90, maybe $90.
Um, it was about $90. Um, and. I was kind of curious as to why people would be willing to spend that much money on a moisturizer and a cleanser, right? And you understand I come from a very male sort of background that I'm, I'm upset if I spent two quid on a bar of soap, right? Let alone 80 bucks on a moisturizer and cleanser.
And so, I was very, very curious and the more we talked to customers, the more we understood actually what they were buying was a treat for themselves. They were, they were buying themselves a gift, um, and this is how they saw their purchase. It was like, this is, it's good for me, I'm treating myself. These were the kind of words that we, we were hearing.
And so what we did was we thought we need to change our [00:29:00] packaging because our, our brown box. Although it was better than our competitors, it was still a brown box, and no one wants a gift in a brown box, and when you open it, you get those sort of plastic bubbles, and we, um, and we thought, everyone's getting, we should definitely be more environmentally conscious than we are at the time, so we needed to up our game, clients wanted us to be more, um, environmentally conscious, and so we're like, right, let's kill two birds with one stone.
And so what we did was we changed the box from being a standard box to Um, it had an extra flap on it if you, if you can kind of, you had to take, lift one flap up and then the inside flap would also come up. But on this inside flap, we wrote this lovely message. We had it printed on there, just dextol in the virtues of being human, for example.
Um, and as they opened one, it felt like they were unwrapping something. Did you see what I mean? It was just a simple thing that we did. We then wrapped the entire thing inside in tissue paper. So there was some nice tissue paper inside that you had to unwrap as well. And then we took out the plastic [00:30:00] bubbles and we, we actually We tried different things in there, but the thing that we sort of settled on was popcorn.
We had this brainwave one day that we put popcorn in as packaging, and we tried 20 different types of popcorn, but we figured it out. We had popcorn machines in the warehouse going 10 to the dozen, you know, making popcorn, and our return purchase rate shot through the roof when we did this. And when you think about what I did, I put a flap on a box, added a bit of tissue paper, and I changed the plastic bubbles to popcorn.
But our return purchase rate, I mean, it went way higher than the industry average, just from understanding, um, that the customers were buying a gift. So we took away something, we replaced it with something else, which matched their values, and lo and behold, it worked really well for us.
Peter Murphy Lewis: I, I like, I like the example, I like the example because it [00:31:00] required, uh, some testing. I'm wondering, did you get that just from you guys playing around with it, or did you get it from talking to somebody?
Matt Edmundson: No, we talked to a lot of customers. I mean, the popcorn came The popcorn idea was not a customer generated idea.
That was, um, that came from a brainstorming session I was leading with the team when we were like, what can we use as an alternative? What came from the customers talking to them was not the tissue paper or the extra flap on the box, was our understanding changed in terms of we understood a lot better why they were buying what they were buying.
Um, and it was this use of words, gift and treat, uh, treating myself, I'm buying a gift for myself, spoiling myself, you know, those kind of phrases that I would never have got had we not spoke to the customer.
Peter Murphy Lewis: That makes me think of, um, How I think about adding things or taking things away when, whenever I'm looking at either Google, my [00:32:00] business reviews for a restaurant or some type of service and or Amazon, I always look at the reviews and I look at the categories because Google and Amazon group reviews into categories.
So let's say, you know, you know, you're buying a beard cream. Well, it groups all of those reviews together and it says, you know, um, breaks. Well, it might say that the bottle doesn't break or that it's firm or that the shoe fits too big, it's too large. So I always pay attention to those categories and you can think about what you're focusing on from a branding point of view by the number of reviews in that category.
Think of those categories, come up with synonyms around with it and then package it in different ways. That'll also tell you what you can take away, right? Like let's say that the most expensive thing that you have in your beauty product, Matt, is the packaging. And none of your reviews, you know, you got 5, 000 reviews and none of them say packaging.
Well, then you need to think, well, maybe I need to do something [00:33:00] a little bit more in depth because my packaging is really expensive and it's not shown up in any of my reviews.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah. That's an interesting point, isn't it? Yeah. You reminded me of a chat we've had on the podcast, Norm, uh, who, Norm Farrar, we were talking about Amazon.
And one of the things that he does is he goes through the Amazon reviews for a product. And I think he gave the example from memory of a kitchen knife. Uh, you know, like a chef's knife and he was like, you know, you could go on there and find one for like 20, 30 bucks. Look at the reviews. Look at what people are saying.
Look at what's missing. Look at how you can improve the product based on the reviews. He'll go then and get a knife manufactured, adding the. The bits in the reviews and taking the bits away that they're complaining about in the reviews, he'll put it on Amazon for 130 bucks and they'll clean up. Right. Uh, and that's his whole thinking is, is sort of going through the reviews like that and just taking that data, throwing a product on and seeing what happens.
Yeah. Clever, isn't it? In a, in a lot of ways. Yeah. So we've got [00:34:00] some, you've given us some great questions to ask. Uh. People, um, what sort of workflow should we be thinking about, you know, and what sort of system, I think you use the word system when we, when you started talking about this, what sort of system should we be thinking about as a company setting up here to help us?
Do this, do it well, and do it continually.
Peter Murphy Lewis: I would say if you're, you know, a mom and pop company that has at least a thousand dollars a month coming in, that you need to think about what your objective is and what is your anti objective, right? So if your objective is revenue, what's your, what's the worst thing that could happen if you get that objective?
You know, your review average goes down, you quit getting positive reviews, and then you need to create. A semi structured interview process in that customer journey for you to determine how you're going to get to that objective without actually doing the opposite as well. Right? That's [00:35:00] where I would start.
If you're a successful eCommerce business, you know, and you're doing half a million and you're, you're profitable, um, I think you, this is even easier for you to do. You can, you're going to get information more quickly. Your customer journey is much more sophisticated. You have the analytics, you have the Google analytics, you have the paid analytics, right?
You have the review analytics, and then you just as an executive or the owner, you need to come in and you need to get your hands dirty. Yeah. for a week and build out the build out the process before you jump in, right, which is related to the objective when I, I, I, I write about customer journey and I talk about customer journey enough at conventions and so forth, people will reach out to me and they'll send me their survey.
And, um, and the very first thing I'll say is what is your goal? And they haven't prepared their semi structured survey with a goal in mind. They've asked a bunch of questions that they can already get from their [00:36:00] existing data. Like, uh, are you a happy customer? Well, I can tell from my churn data. Don't waste a question.
Are you a happy data customer? Right? Don't ask if on a scale of one to 10, how likely are you going to recommend? Like use that for a different moment, right? You only have a couple, couple questions to get to it. Then once you have fine tuned that, that process, now you need to turn it into something that you do at least once a year, almost like an NPS review.
Matt Edmundson: So this is not something you're doing all the time or the team aren't doing this on a regular basis. It's just like what one week out of the year, I'm just calling 20, 30 people. That's what I would
Peter Murphy Lewis: do and I would mainly think about it when you have a, uh, when you think that a product is either underperforming or that you have a new goal and you're not certain about how to do it, right?
So if you have a new goal around a new territory or about, uh, modifying your product or lowering your prices or whatever it is, you need to talk to people first. You need to get over that, [00:37:00] that the fear factor, the analysis paralysis of too much data, not enough data, just go to the person. But the key is the questions, right?
But I mean, I feel like there's enough out there on Google that you can dissect what to do and what not to do based on what we've
Matt Edmundson: been chatting about today. Yeah, totally. And ChatGPT will write them for you, to be fair. I'm intrigued here, actually, because one of my eCommerce companies is a supplement company, right?
A health supplement company. We have been talking internally about the packaging that the supplements come in, okay, and changing that packaging because like everybody we're trying to be more. Um, uh, environmentally sustainable. We're thinking about the environment a lot more now. The packaging we have is very good in the sense that it is, um, it's sort of like a plastic type product made from cane sugar, which makes it biodegradable in about 10 years.
So it's actually quite good. It's also recyclable. Um, so the [00:38:00] packaging in itself has got some good credentials and I think we tell the story well on the website, but when you look at a picture of it, it still looks like white plastic and we're kind of thinking, do we want to change it? So I've thought about glass, for example, and the guys in the fulfillment warehouse are like, there's no way we're sending stuff out in glass because it's a nightmare internationally, et cetera, et cetera.
So there's all kinds of things going on and we've been batting around tins and refill pouches and all kinds of things in the office. What I'm thinking here, listening to you talk. Um, is before I make any further decisions, I need to get on the phone to about 20, 30 customers over the next week and get some feedback, right?
I
Peter Murphy Lewis: would, and I don't know, this goes back to our very first thing that we talked about where I worked in surveys with people about their religious beliefs. I don't know if people are going to be able to answer the question that is going to actually help you determine if it's going to [00:39:00] impact their behavior after you make a decision.
I think that I would probably go about your question in a roundabout way by asking on a scale of 1 to 10 how ecological do they consider themselves? Um, and then I would ask them if, if they answer, you know, like seven, eight, nine, or 10, then I would ask them how that impacts you in your day to day. And I would ask them a couple more extended that would break out there, because you're going to get a lot of answers in the survey, if you ask them up front, that actually isn't true based on it, you're not going to see an impact on the behavior.
And I think that that's, it's because it's trendy. It's because sometimes we don't even understand our unconscious and our subconscious why we're purchasing what our behaviors are. Right? I mean, even you and I as marketers, we, we, we buy stuff on Black Friday and we shouldn't fall for those, but we still do it.[00:40:00]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I still, I still, you know, like I consider myself sustainable. I still buy, uh, uh, a styrofoam cup. And if you asked me why, I can't answer why there's something deeper than that.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. That's interesting. And I, I, I think you're right. I think there's a real interesting one, isn't there, between our subconscious thinking and our actual conscious thinking.
And our conscious thinking is what we say, our subconscious thinking is what we do, how we act, how we behave. And so I like what you're saying there, because actually the questions are, I'm asking you questions more about your subconscious, about how you act and behave, rather than what you, so I think if I said to somebody, um, are you, do you try and live a, you know, sustainable life?
Well, they're going to say yes, aren't they, because why would they say no? Because they come across as the bad guy straight away, don't they? If I ask a question like that. So I think I like what you say about the phrasing
Peter Murphy Lewis: of [00:41:00] it. At least in the US where we're not nearly as advanced, you know, from a sustainable point of view, you know, like I would say we're light years away from, from Europe, uh, in the US.
It's, it's more about the image and how we feel from when people think we're sustainable. So for example, like this, this brand, I think it's called like Love, let me see real quick, Love Your Melon. Okay, Love Your Melon, Love Your Melon is a brand that, um, does not take any profits. It gives away, it's a charitable NGO that gives away all of its profits to kids with cancer.
I'm 99 percent sure that's it. Like, so for me wearing that is more about other people knowing that I'm buying that type of product. So, and, and, and I don't think that that's, you know, uh, I don't think that that can't translate across other countries. There's all some, there's all some, some imagery [00:42:00] around it.
So if that's the path you're going to go because you believe in it, which is great for you, Matt, also make sure that it lines up for an emotional benefit for the person who might not truly be sustainable, but it makes them feel better that they're supporting you.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, that's really powerful. Really powerful.
I'm going to ponder that, uh, Peter, and I'm going to think that through a little bit, like, how would I, how would I phrase those questions? I guess one of the questions would be, um, I'd have to test it out on a few people, I, one of the things that's come into my mind is, would you leave the, the, the bottle of, the current bottle of the health supplement, would you leave it on your kitchen side or would you put it in a cupboard?
Um, and what would your reasoning behind that be? Like, would you try and hide this, or would you be okay with it being out? And trying to understand that might be, uh, quite an interest. Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent. We're not trying to self mark, solve my, uh, packaging issues for my health supplement company.
Uh, they've been going a long time. They will carry on, I'm very sure. Um, so [00:43:00] this, going back to what you said, having a clear objective and anti objective, I have to be honest with you, I've not heard this phrase anti objective. That much. Um, and I quite like that. So just explain what you mean by the objective and anti objective a bit more.
Let's get super clear on that. So
Peter Murphy Lewis: it's the first time it's ever come out of my mouth. So it's gonna, uh, I'm gonna, ladies and gentlemen, bumble and jumble and, and, and scramble around to come up with it. I'm borrowing it from. I'm borrowing it from a book that I read in the last year, and I'm not going to be able to credit who it was, but what they were talking about was your ideal client, and they said what would have to happen that's so negative that you wouldn't want to also work with that ideal client.
So it's basically thinking about who is your ideal spouse, but what's one pet peeve that you would have about that, that there's no way that you would want to marry that ideal spouse, the exact [00:44:00] same thing with a revenue goal. And, and, and what's the, what would you not, what would be a veto for you to go after that revenue goal?
And you need to take that into consideration when you're mapping out, you know, your, your, your objective in that customer journey. So let's just say, you know, like. My, my objective with selling more supplements and making them more sustainable, um, is that I'm making a bigger impact, um, in the world and my carbon footprint, right?
But my, my anti objective around that, let's say that I still. Do that and my revenue goes up. Um, it makes it less likely that people are going to recommend me. And that has to do with X, Y, and Z, or it creates a huge amount of operational stress, stress on my manager. And that might make my manager leave, right?
Because my manager is now going to have to go to China and visit 17 factories in the next year. And they're going to leave me. Yeah, yeah,
Matt Edmundson: no, fair enough. [00:45:00] I like this bit. So for you, Um, starting off with this clear objective and anti objective, uh, understanding what it is that you want, what, and what it is you're not prepared to, to lose, um, you know, with the beginning is, is the critical part because that guides the questions.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Well, in the example of the subscription service that I mentioned, right, you know, they went from 49% and they created a VIP product. One of their concerns is that they were going to be, they were going to be seen as, uh, as like an elitist brand. And, you know, this is, this is a company that sells 15, 000 subscriptions at the 49 $.
So if they start playing around with something that's 2. 99, that could change their perception that they're a blue collar, that they're made for everybody. And you need to think about that. Well, that didn't happen. We achieved it and we were able to map that out. [00:46:00]
Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. Fantastic. Listen, Peter, I am aware of time.
I'm aware that it has flown by at a thousand miles an hour, as it always does when you talk to really interesting people. And I feel like, as always, I've got a list of questions. My question list is longer now than when we started, uh, which is always good. Um, but if people listening to the show want to reach out, if they want to connect with you, maybe hire you, or just maybe got some questions about questions, I suppose, what's the best way for people to do that?
Peter Murphy Lewis: LinkedIn's the best place, just search Peter Murphy Lewis. I'm pretty sure you're the only person you're going to find, at least based in the US or in Chile. Um, and you can also visit my website, strategicpete. com. If you want to come see me with the zebras, just come to Wichita, Kansas and ask for Strategic Pete.
Matt Edmundson: Strategic Pete. Just go to Wichita and ask for Strategic Pete and they'll let you know. Just follow the light right down there. Uh, next time I'm in Kansas, I'm going to stop by because that just sounds like I just want to see the zoo. I genuinely do. I'm really curious. Uh, but listen, uh, Pete, [00:47:00] thank you, man, for coming on the show and sharing your wisdom.
Um, and telling us about the brand name of your hat and all that sort of stuff and about your zoo. It's thoroughly enjoyable and I feel like I've learned a lot and I, I always enjoy learning. So thank you for coming on and thank you for just being an absolute legend. Well, we will of course link to Peter's information in the show notes, which you can get along for free with a transcript at ecommercepodcast.
net, or it'll come straight to your inbox if you are signed up to the newsletter. And of course, a huge thanks again to Peter for joining me today. Love, love, loved. That conversation, and I hope you did too. Also, a big shout out to today's show sponsor, the eCommerce Cohort. Remember to check out their free training online at eCommerce Psych, uh, eCommerce Psych, that's the old website.
Try eCommerceCohort. com, and we get the right website. Uh, come join the membership, be good to see you in there. Also, be sure to follow eCommerce, uh, the eCommerce Podcast, wherever you get your [00:48:00] podcasts from, because we've got some more great conversations lined up, and I don't want you to miss any Any of them.
And in case no one has told you yet today, let me be the first. You are awesome. Yes, you are. Created awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear. Peter's got to bear it. I've got to bear it. You've got to bear it as well. Now, the eCommerce Podcast is produced by Aurion Media. You can find our entire archive of episodes on your favorite podcast app.
The team that makes this show possible is the fabulous. Sadaf Beynon, the beautiful Tanya Hutsuliak, and the legend that is Josh Edmundson who wrote the theme music. As I mentioned, if you would like to read the transcript or show notes, you know where to go. eCommerce podcast.net. Sign up for the newsletter now.
That's it from me. That's it from Peter. Thank you so much for joining us. I'll see you next week. That's it from me. Bye for now.[00:49:00]
