I love music and can’t help but lead with a song….
“Some other folks might be a little bit smarter than I am; bigger and stronger too.”
– You’ve Got a Friend In Me (Randy Newman, from Toy Story)
“I just might have a problem that you’ll understand. We all need somebody to lean on.”
– Lean on Me (Bill Withers)
OK fine, that was 2 songs. Are they in your head now? Oops!
The message of these lyrics is simple: we can’t do it alone.
We can’t all be experts at everything. A true expert knows which other experts to call for help. eCommerce platforms do not have to do it all either, not when solutions exist that are the best at what they do.
When it comes to integrations that work with your eCommerce site, there are many choices out there– too many to cover in one article. I’m going to focus on 3 that have made a significant impact for our clients.
Olark: Live Chat Chart-topper
I lead with Olark because it is one of the first integrations that we recommend to our clients. Olark is a Live Chat client that has three key things going for it:
1) You can literally have it up and running in minutes. Just sign up to get the customized code for your site and drop it in via Google Tag Manager.
2) Entry cost is free. Granted, a free account won’t get you all the really cool features, but it will get you connected to your customers.
3) It’s an attractive and well-designed solution. Out of the box, Olark looks and behaves like the mobile-responsive chat client that it is.
That’s just where things begin with Olark. For a reasonably-priced paid account, you get access to useful features like targeted chat and multiple agents. You also have quite a bit of freedom to customize the look and feel of the user experience. On top of all that, they offer extremely responsive customer support.
Want to see Olark in action? Visit www.brillianceweb.com and chat with someone from our team.
SmartyStreets: Super Slick Address Validation
Frictionless checkout is key for any eCommerce site and SmartyStreets greases the skids of billing and shipping address entry. SmartyStreets integrates with your eCommerce checkout and offers seamless address type-ahead and validation. As you begin to type in your street address, SmartyStreets is doing a lightning-quick lookup and has address suggestions as quickly as you can type. Not only can this be used during checkout, it can be used for New Account creation as well.
“Before the SmartyStreets integration, we would have customer orders coming in without a complete address – causing manual issues for our CSR’s and shipping department,” explains our client Janet Junker, System Development Manager at Wigwam. “By adding smart address logic, consumers are no longer confused when entering their address, and our lives have gotten much simpler when processing orders.”
Want to see SmartyStreets in action? Check out our integration with AspDotNetStorefront on www.wigwam.com.
Yotpo: Five-Star Product Review Platform
Having used other Ratings & Reviews services, I was very impressed with our recent integration of Yotpo. A product review platform is only useful to the extent that you can actually garner reviews from your users. Yotpo achieves this brilliantly by creating a one-step review process.
After a customizable post-purchase period, the customer receives an email with an invitation to review a product. The rating, review, and submission are all done without the customer ever leaving their email client.
Rob Patterson, Owner and Director of Business Development for Spices, Inc. describes the impact that our integration of Yotpo had on their business: “We found that our system for collecting reviews was very cumbersome. It required the customer to bounce back and forth between our after-purchase email and the site. When researching an alternative we really liked the way that Yotpo allowed customers to write a review right from their email which bypassed having to login, find the products, and leave a review. This made the process very simple and we’ve seen a dramatic increase in our product reviews along with social media sharing and customer questions - two things we weren’t even offering before - since [Brilliance] rolled it out.”
On the backend, Yotpo’s API documentation is great, customer support is responsive, and their analytics and customizations would satisfy any tinkerer.
Want to see Yotpo in action? Check out www.spicesinc.com.
Episerver: The Swiss Army Knife of Integrations
I’d be remiss if I didn’t touch on Episerver in this article because the platform offers loads of wildly useful integrations for creating a personalized shopping experience. Two things really stand out about Epi’s offerings: 1) They are part of the Epi Ecosystem, so getting them up and running is relatively easy. 2) They use machine learning to constantly analyze user behavior in order to provide the most relevant content.
Some of our favorite Epi integrations include: Perform (product recommendations), Advance (personalized content), Reach (email personalization), Campaign (email/marketing automation), and Personalized Find (personalized search results).
Our President and CEO, Lori McDonald, has a nice summary of these features in this article. If you’re interested in learning more, give us a call.
We’re in this Together
Your eCommerce site doesn’t have to do it all alone and you’re not on your own when it comes to understanding which integrations would make the biggest impact for your business. The good news is that our team at Brilliance absolutely loves solving problems and finding the perfect solution. Give us a call so we can find the perfect integration to improve your eCommerce site.
