The B2B Experience: What We've Learned So Far
When we started The B2B Experience earlier this year, the goal was simple: to close the gap in actionable insights between sparse annual winter conferences by giving digital leaders a place to talk honestly about what transformation really feels like.
Over the past ten months, we've spoken with sixteen digital leaders who have delivered change in B2B, people who have fought resistance, built momentum, and learned the hard way about what it takes to move complex organisations forward.
We've recorded more than twenty hours of conversation: moments of clarity, frustration, laughter, and hard-won optimism. Different backgrounds, sectors and roles, but a familiar rhythm ran through every story, and four truths kept resurfacing. Not theories, but patterns carved from experience.
1. Change begins when you stop looking away
The first truth is uncomfortable. Change starts when people can no longer look past what their customers are actually living through.
Many guests described the same turning point, the day they brought the outside world inside. A screen recording of an online journey that went wrong, a ridiculous product image, a recording of a buyer's call for help, a story from a front-line colleague that made everyone in the room fall quiet.
That moment of recognition is powerful. You can negotiate with data; you can't negotiate with a customer's frustration. It takes courage to show those truths, to risk being the one who unsettles the room, but that courage is what shifts the conversation.
It's the instant when strategy becomes real, when improvement stops being optional.
Transformation rarely begins with a grand plan. It begins with a mirror and the courage to look squarely at what it reflects.
2. Beneath every broken experience lies broken data
If there's one thread that connects every conversation, it's data - not glossy dashboards, but the quiet, messy kind that underpins everything.
Again and again, people spoke about the hidden damage caused by small inaccuracies: missing images, conflicting specs, prices that don't align, systems that refuse to talk to each other. When that happens, trust dissolves faster than any marketing can rebuild it.
We had a great time at Savant B2B 2025 - a full day of ideas, conversations and connections that left us inspired about where B2B is heading. The big takeaway? Even as technology accelerates, real success still comes down to people, culture and clarity.
Here are some of the highlights that resonated with us:
1. Keep Strategy Simple and Human
The strongest strategies are clear, memorable and easy to rally behind. When visions get too complex or packed with jargon, they lose their power. Simple always wins.
2. Culture Comes Before Technology
You can buy the best tools in the world, but without trust, collaboration and the right mindset, transformation won't stick. Culture is what makes change real.
3. Digital Maturity is Now About AI Readiness
B2B buyers already expect consumer-grade digital experiences. AI is moving fast from concept to practice - driving research, scaling content, and even shaping buying decisions. The winners will be those with strong data foundations and digital maturity.
4. Customer Experience is the Growth Engine
Whether it's making a checkout smoother or creating journeys that feel seamless across channels, customer experience is what sets brands apart. Loyalty and advocacy are built on how people feel, not just what they buy.
5. Purpose and Personalisation Go Hand in Hand
Purpose-led brands inspire trust. Add personalisation, and you've got relationships that last. In competitive markets, values and relevance are powerful levers for growth.
6. Practical Innovation Beats Big Promises
Small, test-and-learn steps deliver more impact than waiting for a grand rollout. Innovation is about moving forward in ways that actually stick.
Final Thought
At Biglight, we've always believed that transformation doesn't start with technology, it starts with people. And nowhere is that more true than in B2B organisations, where the challenges of digital change run deeper, are more complex, and often more human than they appear on the surface.
Earlier this year, somewhere above the Alps, the seed of an idea took root. Despite over 25 years in ecommerce and digital, we recognised something missing in the B2B space. While B2C has matured rapidly, with no shortage of content, playbooks and platforms to share knowledge, B2B remains underserved. There are a few brilliant conferences, but beyond that? A real lack of content that gets into the gritty, human reality of making change happen.
So, we decided to do something about it.
Inspired by the honesty and focus of The Diary of a CEO, we launched The B2B Experience, a podcast designed to explore real stories of digital transformation in B2B, told by the people who've lived it.
Over the last 6 months, we've had the privilege of sitting down with 14 incredible digital pioneers from across the UK, Europe and the US. These guests have generously shared their stories - stories of change, resistance, breakthroughs, and learning. And while their backgrounds and sectors vary, we've noticed some striking common themes emerge:
Unconventional beginnings
Many of our guests were seen as outliers pushing digital forward in environments not always ready to embrace it. They were often perceived as unconventional (even a bit crazy) before ultimately earning recognition for reshaping their industries.
Curious, unscripted journeys
Few of their career paths were planned. Most followed curiosity, seized unexpected opportunities, and learned by doing - not through rigid blueprints.
The real obstacles are human
Again and again, what held back progress wasn't tech. It was people. Organisational resistance, rigid processes, fear of change, were the real challenges.
Change only happens with trust
Every story highlighted a key insight: meaningful change in B2B is about trust. It's about listening deeply, addressing fears, and building momentum by delivering outcomes that make life better for people.
These conversations have been humbling and endlessly inspiring and they've reinforced our belief that transformation is a deeply human journey.
A huge thank you to the brilliant guests who've joined us so far. We're just getting started and our goal is simple: to close the insight gap around digital transformation in B2B, one story at a time.
Let's start with a little bit of history...
The term "Black Friday" was first used by Philadelphia police in the 1950s and 1960s to describe the chaotic day after Thanksgiving when massive crowds of shoppers and tourists flooded the city before the Army-Navy football game. The influx led to gridlocked traffic, crowded sidewalks, and a rise in shoplifting and accidents, making it a challenging day for law enforcement. At the same time, retailers began seeing a surge in sales, turning losses into profits as the holiday shopping season kicked off.
Recognising the potential, retailers soon embraced Black Friday as a way to drive early holiday spending, boost profits, and attract new customers. However, over time, the event evolved into a frenzy of extended discounting, further fuelled by the introduction of Cyber Monday. What began as a strategic sales opportunity quickly became a race to the bottom, with both retailers and consumers becoming hooked on the "discount drug."
Black Friday now accounts for up to 20% of a retailer's annual sales, making it impossible to ignore. Yet, the heavy focus on discounts has nurtured a discount-driven consumer base, overshadowing brand loyalty. Customers have grown sceptical of the constant promotions, experiencing Black Friday fatigue but still expecting a deal.
The surge in discount-driven sales data-some retailers report a 400% increase in sign-ups during Black Friday-creates further challenges. High expectations for deep discounts strain margins, making it difficult to maintain higher-priced sales in subsequent years. Additionally, third-party payment platforms like Apple and Google increasingly control customer data, complicating efforts to build solid CRM programs that foster genuine loyalty.
To regain control, retailers must shift their approach to Black Friday from a passive acceptance of discount culture to a proactive strategy focused on acquisition, loyalty, and engagement. Retailers must engage and ask the right questions at the start. Rather than simply offering discounts, retailers should engage customers through a value exchange, collecting insights into their interests and behaviours. Understanding what customers like to do-whether it's playing sports, hiking, or socialising-provides actionable data that goes beyond basic demographics.
Consumers are already accustomed to sharing information for better experiences, as seen with personalised platforms like Spotify and TikTok. Retailers must capitalise on this by delivering targeted, relevant content that meets customer needs rather than sending generic, impersonal messages.
The solution lies in a robust CRM plan that leverages Black Friday as an entry point for long-term engagement. By offering personalised experiences and meaningful connections, retailers can shift from discount dependency and reinvigorate brand loyalty, ensuring that Black Friday remains a valuable part of their strategy.
We're currently helping retailers gear up for this, so if you want a chat or know how we could help, follow the link below to get in touch. We're less than 50 days away from Black Friday and counting; there is still time...
Around 80% of the UK population are now buying products online, they are spending around four days every week researching products online and expect engaging online shopping experiences. Yet despite the size of the market, the number of abandoned shopping carts suggests retailers can do significantly more to tap into consumer desires.
For us, the fundamentals are clear. It's about helping brands find new ways to do what they do best - creating aspiration, desire and confidence in their products.
Time and again, we see just how important visuals are in getting customers to engage with products and feel confident enough to move forward with a purchase. And while identifying the minutiae of ecommerce photography makes us seem a little pernickety, attention to detail is how we excel. As a leading independent digital experience design agency, we take the guesswork out of how to create a better experience. We actually test and refine and drive creative and commerce performance through insight, data and customer validation. If you're not doing this, you're just guessing and that can be costly.
Whether you're using paintbrushes or pixels, a picture really does paint a thousand words. There's science to prove it too. It's called the picture superiority effect and it means that images are more memorable than words.
In the fight for the 62% of consumers who start their shopping journey online, getting customers to click to buy isn't quite as simple as making your models strike a pose that they'll remember.
With more than 40% of consumers continuing cut back on non-essentials and 59% specifically cutting back on clothes, it's the brands that let their photography do the talking who are more likely to convert browsers to buyers.
And we should know. Because with nearly two decades of hands-on ecommerce photography experience (and skills), we've helped high street favourites and global brands speak to their customers through creative commercial imagery.
Developing more than 1,000 images each week from our in-house studio keeps us pretty busy. When we're not shooting and snapping, we like to get to grips with the whys and wherefores of what works and what doesn't (because we're curious like that).
It's given us unique insight into shopper mindsets and customer journeys that make us better creators. But what use is knowledge unless it's shared - here's what we've learned.
Omnichannel shopping gives consumers choice - a benefit they're willing to flex. Less than half of shoppers who start their journeys online end up buying digitally and the average basket abandon rate for retail is now 70%. And while price is a factor in decision making, it doesn't always override the desire to buy (just 18% switch brands to save money).
Faced with indecision, retailers must appeal to consumers on a subconscious level. Taking away the ability to touch and try means photography must try to recreate the emotional and sensory in-store experience, giving consumers the confidence and impetus to buy.
Studies show that when businesses get it right on an emotional level, sales can increase threefold. Our own research also shows that while facts like price and size availability are important, it's product imagery that draws shoppers in and keeps them engaged.
To give you a better idea of what affects buying decisions, we identified five core themes from our insight and optimisation teams that repeatedly crop up in our customer shopping studies.
Interestingly we have found through our testing and experimentation team, that customers have a higher click through rate initially when presented with cut-out product images rather than those featured on models. Our tests have shown that leading with a model shot on product listing pages can actually decrease click through to the product details page by 11%. Interaction with navigation filters also increases when presented with a model shot first (by 6% on mobile and 15% on desktop), perhaps suggesting that model-led shots are not providing enough clarity to make decisions in the first instance.
Interestingly, although lighting ranks relatively low on consumer priorities, it's closely linked to perceptions of trust and quality, suggesting this appeals on a deeper subconscious level. As such our testing has shown customers engage more when images are photographed in natural light, natural poses, producing minimal shadow. May sound obvious, but you'd be surprised how many miss the basics.
Image choice
Consumers expect multiple images photographed from different angles, often including 360 degrees shots on products such as Furniture/big ticket items, close-ups to show details and model images for fit. To complement this, customers do expect to have superzoom functionality. If customers can't see images clearly, it can affects exit rates by up to 3% - fine margins but the difference between making a sale or not.
Clarity and quality can also be affected by format and compression, which brands need to consider in relation to site loading time and how this might impact consumer experiences.
Identity and styling
Online shoppers want to see themselves reflected in imagery and expect a variety of body types and ethnicities to be represented. Diversity is so ingrained in consumer expectations, that not providing it can actively discourage sales and damage brand perception.
Younger customers especially expect images to be relatable to demonstrate you understand them. Tapping into lifestyle aspirations, model choice, hair and makeup all play a role in creating audience relevance and images that show a complete outfit are particularly appreciated. Customers are looking for guidance and inspiration as part of their decision making process and an overarching theme we found was that inconsistencies (for example, in lighting or styling) negatively impact brand perception and quality.
Realism and sensory appeal
Touching products triggers a greater emotional response compared to just looking, studies show. We'd recommend that brands simulate these tactile experiences by helping to demonstrate fit, fabric and garment movement through video and high-resolution close-ups of texture. Again and again, we have seen improved click throughs to basket when retailers understand the impact of investing here.
Complementing images with detailed product descriptions, including model height, size and garment measurements all help customers 'examine' the product and visualise how an item might look on them.
In the absence of being able to try clothes on, shoppers have to rely on model poses and expressions to gauge how an item might make them feel. Our focus group discussions revealed customers were more likely to interact with a product if models appeared relaxed, natural and happy - particularly for active and casualwear (because nobody wants to be miserable in their spare time).
Identifying these themes through measuring the impact, means we've been able to use technology, alongside our photographic skills, to adapt and respond to increasing customer expectations.
An early success which is driving conversion and reducing returns has been magboard photography. It combines the need for static cut-outs and sensory experiences by making garments more lifelike with greater depth and realism. We've had great success in this area for George@Asda and we're able to deliver greater efficiencies too.
Instead of using a mannequin, products are styled on a board using powerful magnets. This allows us to showcase the natural silhouette and contours of a garment, giving emphasis to fabric texture, depth and movement through how it folds or wraps.
We're also focussing on augmented reality (AR) and how this can help brands connect with consumers. Done right, it can increase the likelihood of a sale by nearly 20%, according to the Harvard Business Review.
Not only that, AR helps reassure consumers when it comes to buying from a brand they've never tried, or a new product from somewhere they already shop. Excitingly, AR could bridge the confidence gap between triggering an emotional response to a product and guiding consumers over the finish line to complete the sale.
So far, our own experiments with AR have shown a light-touch approach works best. Overwhelm customers and you're more likely to see them click exit than buy.
If you've got questions and want to hear more about how we can help you connect with consumers through commercial creativity, drop us a line using the link below, and we'll bring you the answers.
We've noticed a growing desire amongst digital leaders in manufacturing, wholesale and distribution to connect with other people like them.
So we've created The B2B Experience a rapidly-growing LinkedIn Group for leaders in B2B digital commerce to support this.
This desire is driven by three challenges people are facing:
Digital leaders in B2B operate within huge enterprises, often with international, sometimes global footprints, but where few (if any) of their colleagues "get" digital, or have actual experience working in it.
This means they have few opportunities to discuss ideas and share best practice with people who "speak their language" or have a genuinely informed opinion. There can be a real sense of isolation within their own organisations.
The world of B2B digital commerce is largely closed, with the majority of sites within the competitive and broader landscape hidden behind login screens. A kind of (thankfully, benign) dark web.
This makes it nigh-on impossible for digital leaders in B2B to assess the strength of their digital propositions, benchmark their customer experience or be inspired by best-in-class examples from other industries without engaging with others.
Finally, they are part of a hugely fragmented, still maturing digital community - separated from others facing similar challenges by job title, industries, countries and continents, with no associations and few conferences to support them.
As a result, it's extremely hard to find and connect with like-minded peers, to discuss ideas and share insights and learn from what others are doing - yet the desire to do all of these things is getting stronger.
We want to make it easy for digital leaders in B2B to find and connect with each other and begin to unite this fragmented community - just when they need it most.
That's why we created The B2B Experience - a community for digital leaders in B2B on LinkedIn to connect and share.
If you are experiencing any of these challenges then - click here to join.
Third party digital commerce driven by Google Shopping and social channels is threatening to take control of the customer experience and lock brands out of crucial customer data.
In response, luxury brands are urgently seeking to engage luxury consumers through loyalty and membership schemes - but here they must compete with multi-brand retailers with well-established and successful schemes of their own.
The good news is that there is a clear sweet spot that luxury brand loyalty and membership schemes can inhabit, if they are shaped by a clear understanding of customers' emotional needs and directly designed to meet them.
One thing is clear, however - finding that sweet spot does not mean simply aping multi-brand retail loyalty schemes. It means delivering emotionally resonant experiences that neither 3rd party digital commerce, nor multi brand retail can match.
The rise of 3rd party digital commerce
Right now, today, up to half of luxury clients start their digital purchase journeys on Google Shopping. This is not guesswork, these are real numbers drawn from our work with luxury brands - and at the current rate of change, that figure could be north of 80% in just 12 months time.
This is no accident. It is driven by an explicit Google strategy, as explained by Bill Ready, Head of Google Commerce: "Google Shopping will evolve into a platform for retail discovery, where consumers can find and buy products from anywhere."
To make matters worse, luxury clients love the convenience of Apple Pay, Android Pay and other ewallets. These clients barely interact with any aspect of a brand site beyond the product details page (PDP) - and they certainly have little interest in signing up to anything during that journey.
The challenge for luxury brands is how to hook these clients - 76% of whom will be Gen Z and millennials by 2026 - back into first party commerce, beyond the PDP.
Finding the loyalty sweet spot
The good news is that loyalty and membership schemes work in luxury - 62% of clients are likely to spend more after joining a loyalty scheme.
Perhaps most importantly, building a community halo of engaged clients may be the only way for luxury brands to fight back against the threat from 3rd party digital commerce - retaining control of the customer experience and gathering the intelligence they need to deliver the personalised and omnichannel experiences that demanding luxury clients expect.
So where is the loyalty sweet spot for luxury brands? Our work has revealed that, beyond social status signals, there are four core emotional needs that draw clients to luxury brands:
This has not escaped the attention of multi-brand retailers like Net-a-Porter, Matches and Farfetch, all of which already operate loyalty schemes that address at least some of these needs.
However, if we translate those needs into specific loyalty 'rewards' for luxury clients, it becomes clear that only brands themselves can address the most important needs - and this is where we find the sweet spot for luxury brands:
But translating those needs which only luxury brands can address means rethinking loyalty - moving away from transactional approaches to build communities of engaged clients drawn to an amplified luxury experience.
From loyalty to client privilege...
The sweet spot for luxury brands is in offering exclusive brand experiences, products and services. We call this client privilege, and it has the potential to elevate luxury brand offerings well above the tiered, points and reward-based loyalty scheme favoured by multi-brand retail.
Deeper client engagement, more traffic to 1st party digital commerce channels, greater visit frequency and higher conversion rates, the data to shape personalisation, and greater overall spend are all within reach - and, crucially, it is possible to research, design and deliver client privilege schemes in around six weeks.
...in six weeks
We have developed a blueprint for delivering luxury brand client privilege schemes - essentially a three stage process that can be carried out largely using existing tools and technologies - and, as ever, a deep understanding of client needs and motivations is a prerequisite for success.
Overall, this takes around six weeks, spanning strategy definition, programme execution and experience evolution.
Get in touch with us to find out how our blueprint for luxury brand loyalty could help you fight off the threat from 3rd party digital commerce and retain control of the customer experience.
As a challenging year of falling or static sales hurtles into November, a crucial Christmas trading period looms large. One thing seems certain; with brands and retailers facing fierce competition for a share of depressed peak spend, there is no room for mistakes.
As we head into peak trading, uncertainty reigns. While many brands and retailers remain optimistic, predicting year-on-year sales growth, customers tell a very different story. All the signs are that the cost of living crisis will seriously impact Christmas spending, with the more doom-laden predictions suggesting a GBP 3bn shortfall compared with 2022.
The only sensible conclusion, based on those predictions, is that this year's peak will be more competitive than ever before - and that the winners and losers will be decided according to their success in meeting the needs of demanding, unpredictable customers.
Is going to be a battle and, with 64% of customers planning to do 'the majority' of seasonal shopping online [1], it seems likely to be fought mainly via digital channels.
The solution, however, is disarmingly simple and we can help you take action by running meaningful customer research in days rather than weeks - and, even at this late stage, it can provide the actionable insight required to adapt and optimise.
No room for misfiring campaigns
All the uncertainty clearly puts huge pressure on long-planned Christmas campaigns. They simply have to be on the money, striking the right tone and backed by digital experiences that are slick, easy and which address well-understood customer needs. There can be no guesswork, and in a rapidly changing world, it is dangerous to assume that campaigns planned months ago will still resonate today.
Clearly, it is too late to go back to the drawing board, but even small tweaks now could make all the difference - from refining messaging to fixing 'low hanging fruit' usability issues, even the smallest changes can deliver big returns at this time of year.
That said, with customers expected to shop early this Christmas, brands and retailers do not have the luxury of time.
Rapid research: Customers have the answers
Rapid customer research can give us important clues ahead of another peak that seems likely to be mainly digital, and at a time when customer behaviour, needs and motivations are so opaque. It can help to tell us about the quite specific customer needs that will shape buying behaviour, such as
It can also deliver vital customer experience insight - assessing everything from site performance and friction in the journey to the placement of campaign content, all of which will be more important than ever this year. After all, no one wants to see well-executed, innovative campaigns derailed by customer experience issues.
The good news is rapid customer research doesn't need to be based on anything approaching a final design or treatment. Even research based on sketched-out concepts can tell us what is likely to work in this challenging reality, what issues might emerge later, and the tweaks and optimisations that are likely to enhance campaign visibility and performance, or remove friction from the customer experience.
Make no mistake, that kind of input is not just good practice; in these uncertain times, putting customer feedback at the heart of campaign planning could make the difference between success and failure this Christmas.
In Action: Customer-centric Design
This is not just theory. This is an approach that forward-thinking, customer-centric retail brands are already taking.
They recognise that rapid research is not just a new approach - it's about mindset change; being continually customer-informed both strategically and tactically - and rapid customer research can be incredibly valuable, as our clients have recently discovered.
In one case, a global sportswear brand wanted to incorporate testing in the sprint cycle - to understand in detail whether messaging, campaigns, tweaks and optimisations are going to hit the mark before they go live.
In response, we worked together to inject rapid customer research into the sprint cycle - to remove uncertainty from the entire process. Simply, we take a brief on quite a specific development, write scripts for unmoderated online tests, harvest, analyse and organise the findings and report back.
That whole process takes around three days.
Certainty in an Uncertain World
Clearly, this approach still can't offer any guarantees, but it is a means by which to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances based on meaningful evidence; evidence that can help to ensure that an indispensable focus on customer needs is not lost in the battle for a share of Christmas spending.
After all, who wants to run campaigns ahead of such a challenging peak trading period without doing something to ensure as far as possible that customers are going to respond positively, and that potential issues have been unearthed and dealt with?
Rapid testing, then, is about optimising performance and managing risk. The alternative, to press on without any customer evidence, is a much less certain approach and, if there is one thing we all need at the moment, it is a little certainty.
References
[1] https://www.drapersonline.com/news/uk-households-to-spend-3bn-less-this-christmas
There may not yet have been a 'big bang' AI revolution, but its potential to revolutionise the way brands engage with customers is undeniable.
For now, however, many businesses are still working out what to do with it. Still more remain fearful of its potential to disrupt - not just businesses and business models, but entire markets. In fact, while 73% of businesses understand Gen AI and 29% are using it in some way, more than half (52%) expect it to have a 'meaningful, tangible, disruptive impact on their businesses over the next five years.'[1]
There is some basis for that fear if only the sheer pace at which AI technologies are developing. For instance, patenting activity in Gen AI - always a bellwether for innovation - has accelerated hugely in recent years. From a base of 1,450 patents five years ago, we now stand at more than 6000, a near five-fold increase.[1]
Small wonder then, that so many brands are looking closely at AI.
Customer experience innovation: How we are helping clients to use AI
The question is 'where to start?'. There is, of course, no single answer, but the key is to start with a use case - not simply with an ambition to 'adopt AI' - and to focus on areas where AI can make a tangible difference right now. More often than not customer experience design, is still about using AI's ability to take on the heavy lifting - time-consuming, repetitive tasks that are nevertheless essential to human-driven innovation.
This is precisely where we are helping brands to harness the power of AI - drawing on its strengths to drive efficiencies and enable innovation. So, here are three examples of ways we are helping brands to harness AI in customer experience innovation:
1. Furniture retailer: Using AI to reduce resource burnout and improve product information.
Our client, a large, multi-category furniture retailer wanted to respond to unmet customer needs by making furniture dimension information more accessible and easier to use.
Clearly, when it comes to large furniture items, such as sofas, dimensions are crucial to buying decisions. However, previously, the dimensions of individual items were only available as an image on PDPs. As a result, the information was hard to use, all but invisible to customers with accessibility needs and could not be used as a search filtering facet.
However, fixing the issue across a catalogue running to many thousands of products was proving a hugely resource-hungry, time-consuming task. Carried out manually across a relatively small sofa range, the process of manually extracting size information into spreadsheets took 25 hours and was subject to an error rate of 10%.
How AI helped: We used Google Vision API to take over the heavy lifting. After around five hours of developing bespoke scripts to apply Vision API to this specific use case, the tool delivered a full set of sizing information in just five minutes, initially with an error rate of between 0% and 2%. Further tweaking delivered consistent error-free performance.
The time and resource-saving is obvious - and even more significant when scaled up across the retailer's entire catalogue. But just as importantly, the retailer is now able to display furniture sizing information in a much more usable, accessible way and is already working on adding dimensions such as height, width and depth to product and search filtering.
2. Crafting and hobby retailer: Using AI to unlock more customer experience tests
The nature of our clients' product range demands that PDPs feature quite long, text-heavy product descriptions. These may be useful for customers new to crafting but can be cumbersome and unnecessary for more experienced customers.
Our client wanted to develop and test ways to solve this issue and ensure that PDPs were just as usable for customers of all types. However, extracting the information required to run tests - essentially drawing key product details from dense text across tens of thousands of PDPs - had always rendered innovation in this area prohibitively expensive.
How AI helped: We used OpenAI API to gather this detail from every product in its catalogue in a matter of seconds, by asking it to scan product descriptions and summarise the six main benefits of every product.
This required some work to shape and contextualise our question for OpenAI - simply because contextualising and constraining Gen AI input is crucial to gathering useful outputs. For instance, in some categories, we stipulated that the six benefits must include dimensions, weight and guarantee, while other categories required slightly different framing (for example "This will be read by an advanced user").
However, even with that additional effort, applying AI to the problem opened the door to previously out-of-reach tests by making the preparatory work quick, easy and low-cost.
3. Apparel brand: Using AI to identify innovation opportunities.
Our client, a mass-market fashion brand, was seeking opportunities to improve product detail page content. The initial plan was to use promotional 'badges' conveying sales messaging - such as 'Lightweight. Perfect for Summer' - as a means to drive conversions.
However, it was concerned about customer reactions to badges that can be perceived as a 'hard sell'.
In response, we arrived at the idea of using common phrases in positive customer reviews to populate dynamic PDP badges with regularly, and automatically, updated content. However, this approach would normally require time-consuming and expensive preparation. Even if the test was applied to a single product category, it would demand many hours of trawling through hundreds of reviews across 40 or 50 products.
How AI helped: We tasked OpenAI to search through all positive customer reviews across a test product category, summarising common phrases in four to six words - a task it completed in a matter of seconds, pulling out phrases such as 'Perfect fit. Unbeatable price'.
This allowed us to test the hypothesis on a selection of product pages - a test that would otherwise have been out of reach. The results were positive and 'user generated' badges are now in place across its digital commerce site.
What's more, because we used the OpenAI API to gather the content, the client is now able to use AI to dynamically generate new badge content as reviews are added to the site - with a layer of human QA in between, badges can now be easily, almost automatically, changed to reflect the latest customer reviews.
What we learned
The main lesson from all this has been a simple one: It is possible to generate significant benefits from AI in customer experience innovation now, without spending months or years developing a 'killer application.'
Every brand with a focus on constantly improving the customer experience can harness AI to accelerate innovation, reduce costs and free CX teams to focus on high-value creative activities.
The key is to remain abreast of developments in AI, but always with potential use cases in mind - because AI is not (yet) a magic bullet in its own right. It still needs to be used in a way that is planned, relevant and has clear, tangible benefits - and, in most cases, human input will still be vital.
In addition, as with all customer experience innovation, testing to validate everything from customer response and accessibility to commercial impact will be crucial to the effective use of AI - as will be the ability to gather and interrogate data from AI-led solutions.
A good starting point is to think about business goals and where AI can help - where could it drive efficiency, deliver time savings, or enable innovation - and how can effectively test potential applications.
If your brand is starting out on its own Gen AI journey, seeking expert guidance and support - from identifying use cases and developing applications to devising tests - is likely to save significant time and resource, so feel free to get in touch for more information.
References
[1] https://www.retail-insight-network.com/comment/generative-ai-beyond-the-hype/
Our recent work has revealed four significant challenges facing luxury brands as they strive to align their digital commerce experiences with the (ever-evolving) needs and expectations of their customers, but also that turning these challenges into opportunities will require a whole new approach to customer engagement, with community at its core.
At the FT Business of Luxury Summit in May, BCG forecast that the overall size of the luxury market would return to pre-COVID levels by the end of this year before growing by over 8% for the next three years at least. The sector appears resilient to today's macroeconomic headwinds and continues to be an attractive place to be.
But it will also face challenges. Forthcoming legislation to mandate more sustainable practice in the fashion industry is expected to have a significant impact, geopolitical volatility and uncertainty over China will continue and the transformative impact of generative AI needs to be considered.
These are, of course, very real, complex issues, and brands will be confronting them against the backdrop of another period of real change, as millennials and Gen Z customers come to dominate luxury spending. They bring a whole new worldview and a new set of demands that we all need to understand and adapt to.
Change is nothing new of course. Ever since we helped Burberry create their first digital commerce channels in 2006, we've been fortunate enough to work with a host of luxury brands. We've seen first hand that customer needs, motivations and behaviours never stand still - what is new, is the sheer pace of change.
Our most recent work has reinforced that view. Yes, today's customers still perceive luxury brands in much the same way as those who came before - they expect the best without question. However, the way they engage with brands, how they expect brands to respond, and how they ascribe value to that engagement is changing immeasurably.
In brief; providing experiences that meet customer expectations for exceptional service is no longer a route to differentiation. They have become mere table stakes. Today's luxury customers expect much more, and there is also much more that brands can do to satisfy those expectations.
No two brands are the same of course, but based on our recent work, here are the four biggest challenges facing luxury brands as they seek to align the digital commerce experiences they provide with the needs and expectations of their customers:
1. For customers - luxury is convenience
For customers, luxury products are about self-expression, quality and timelessness - but in luxury digital commerce, offering easy, convenient experiences is now the cost of entry.
Luxury is convenience for today's customer. They are impatient and will gravitate towards digital experiences that are simple and effortless - quickly rejecting those that are not.
Brands need to create personalised experiences that meet the specific needs individual customers have each time they engage with their digital channels
This means it's essential that brands understand the needs a customer has each time they engage with them and ensure their digital channels meet these needs quickly and smoothly. Any friction in the customer journey could prove terminal.
2. Customers are omnichannel - digital commerce is not
Customers still place a great deal of value on the store experience and see it as a natural complement to the convenience provided by digital commerce. The majority engage with both channels and move between them often, but there's significant friction when they do this that causes frustration.
Brands have an opportunity to do much more to engage with and enable these behaviours. Providing simple and useful tools to support customers as they transition between channels in their journey from inspiration to purchase can make the entire experience not just convenient, but pleasurable and enjoyable too.
3. Post-purchase experiences fall far short of expectations
The quality and convenience of the post-purchase experience is front of mind for most customers. However the delivery, returns and exchange services provided by many luxury brands (that dictate compliance with a host of rules) fall far short of both their expectations and their experiences elsewhere.
The post-purchase experience will be the new battleground for luxury brands [*]. It's not easy to improve, but those that strive to provide premium services that are effortless and convenient and that make clients feel valued and trusted will be the long-term winners.
4. The luxury customer is changing
By 2026, Millennials and Gen Z customers will account for 75% of the luxury market [*]. This will herald a profound shift in attitudes, influences and motivations and change the way brands need to act and communicate.
Brands must fully embrace this shift and the fundamental change it is already driving. That means working harder to understand the needs and expectations of the customers of tomorrow and ensuring their digital experiences satisfy them.
Crucially, younger customers are looking for brands with a clear sense of purpose that they find meaningful and which resonates with them. Brands must communicate in ways that are authentic and credible, that are respectful of different worldviews and feel relevant.
So how do brands understand these challenges and seize the opportunities they present? Quite simply, none of them can be tackled without first understanding customer responses to current experiences, identifying unmet needs and mapping out a future vision that they can start stepping towards. Design-thinking in practice.
But in a way that's the easy part, because addressing some of these challenges (omnichannel and post-purchase experiences in particular) have massive implications for logistics, systems and processes - areas where progress is possible, but typically takes quite a while. All the more reason to get going now.
The personalisation conundrum
To make matters worse though, a fundamental requirement for addressing every one of these challenges will be to identify individual customers, understand their status, needs and behaviours, then deliver personalised experiences that respond to these. And quite frankly that's not possible today.
Today's time-poor customers are in too much of a hurry to identify themselves during their digital commerce interactions - relying on search to find products, using guest checkout and third-party wallets to purchase them and avoiding email subscriptions. Tomorrow's customers won't use email at all.
As long as this continues (and it will), any meaningful personalisation in digital commerce will remain a pipe dream and the experiences brands provide for their customers will be the opposite of individual and personalised - anonymous and generic. The old processes of customer engagement are broken.
The answer lies in community and belonging
To address this and create the two-way relationships that will be fundamental for addressing the challenges outlined above (and make the sort of personal service that customers value actually possible), luxury brands need to take things to another level.
We are all drawn to brands with values that align with our own and we have a deeply human need to feel a sense of belonging - these are the foundations on which brand engagement are built. In luxury this is everything.
Belonging to this community must provide benefits that customers find compelling enough at a single glance to make them pause (just for a second) and engage, such as offering exclusive access to products, providing differentiated levels of service, rewarding loyalty and building mutual trust. The benefits that matter to customers will be different for every brand.
Embarking on this journey (as well as starting to solve the tricky logistics problems) opens up the potential to seize the opportunities implicit in the four challenges set out above, but also create digital commerce experiences that are as unique as customers themselves.
Need Help?
You can read more about our services here - and, if you're looking for innovative ways to validate a digital product or service, get in touch to find out more about how we can help.
References
[*] BCG, FT Business of Luxury Summit, Monte Carlo, May 2023
[**] Harvard Business Review - The New Science of Customer Emotions, November 2015
Google is pulling down the shutters on its Optimize (and Optimize 360) tool on 30 September 2023. As it's the most popular freemium option out there, its sunsetting will impact a number of businesses and the way they test and experiment on digital marketplaces.
The time is now ticking and the most obvious, immediate change will be the need to find an alternative service for experimentation programmes. For businesses that currently rely on Optimize, this will mean the following:
The transition to a new A/B testing tool can be especially disruptive for companies that have ongoing campaigns, or experiments, that require consistent testing and optimisation.
It's an obvious one, but worth mentioning. Companies which choose to migrate to paid A/B testing tools and/or enterprise-level solutions will need to allocate additional resources to pay for the tools.
Switching to a new A/B testing tool will mean upskilling and setting aside extra training resources, in order for digital teams to fully understand and utilise the replacement platform's features and capabilities.
First things first, though. Here are some actions you can and need to do now (and have hopefully already done, or at least begun the process), in preparation to the plug being pulled on Optimize.
All active experiments and personalisations will end on 30 September and you won't be able to access your experience inference results or your historical Google Analytics raw data after the sunset. In other words, any insights into customer behavior and/or preferences will be lost. So make sure you retrieve your data before 30 September. You can download your historical data before the sunset date here: Export your Optimize report data. To access your historical raw data, use the Google Analytics Data API.
You can continue using Google Optimize for your experimentation programmes up until 30 September, but you should already be going ahead with transitioning your Universal Analytics - which will sunset in July 2023 - to Google Analytics 4. This is important, as year on year data will not be available once GA360 is turned off. If you need more help and information on the transition, have a read of this excellent blog by Biglight's senior data analyst last year.
Also, Google has announced that it is investing in third-party A/B testing integrations for Google Analytics 4. Find out how to transition to Analytics 4 here.
Map out how you will continue to conduct testing after the sunset date. Research alternative tools now - don't delay - and identify the ones that best meet your needs early. Compare pricing and features of alternative platforms to determine which one is the best fit for your budget and requirements. Test, run a pilot and aim for a proof of concept on alternative tools well ahead of 30 September, in order to ensure you can pick the right fit - and to discover any potential issues or shortcomings they may have.
Although there are a number of free tools you can consider, the best option will depend on your specific requirements - which might mean you'll need to opt for a paid-for service. For example, if you are in the next stage of maturity when it comes to feature testing and new experiences, you should consider a mid-level tool.
Here are some you might want to consider, depending on the stage/size of your business and specific requirements.
Free version of VWO
VWO is an experimentation platform consisting of several different products - from Testing, Insights and Personalize to FullStack. It's free to use for up to 50K users per month. https://vwo.com/pricing/
AB tasty
AB Tasty is a solution for testing, re-engagement of users, and content personalisation, designed for marketing teams as well as optimisation specialists.
Optimizely Web
The leading A/B testing tool. It's easy to use - you don't need to be technical to launch small tests so is excellent for the users wanting to step up - and the Stats Engine makes testing easier for beginners.
Sitespect
SiteSpect is the only solution that enables you to test and optimise every part of your digital customer journey - from client-side look and feel to server-side functionality - with a single implementation and single UI with a single view of the customer. Leverage all your client-side targeting capabilities on the server-side without writing any code.
Coveo (Qubit)
Coveo (Qubit) is a testing platform which was focused primarily on AB testing but is now highly engaged on personalization for marketing. Accordingly, it has some of the strongest segmentation capabilities of any tool on this list.
Adobe Test and Target
One of the more expensive tools but very powerful. If you already use Adobe for analytics, migrating to Test and Target is a no-brainer.
Optimizely
Optimizely provides server-side testing, A/B testing and multivariate testing tools, website personalization, and feature toggle capabilities, as well as web content management and digital commerce.
While the end of Google Optimize will present short-term challenges for companies that rely on it, the impact can be mitigated by planning and a well-planned migration to a new A/B testing tool.
At Biglight, we help businesses grow and achieve their commercial goals by creating exceptional digital experiences - that's why we're chosen by leading brands across a range of sectors.
If you need help with your transition from Google Optimize - or want to know more about how we turn data and insight into digital experiences that deliver commercial success - get in touch! You can also read more on the topic of Google Analytics in another blog post here.
Louise Godwin
At Biglight, we spend a lot of time analysing and understanding the ever-evolving needs and expectations of users and customers (and more importantly, the customers of our customers). Using our insight, we're able to design experiences that not only meet those customer and user needs, but which take into account brands' objectives.
At the heart of that process sits research.
Peering into the data and studying how users behave - be it in the B2B or B2C space - tells us a lot about not just current trends, but also about emerging trends and how customer behaviour is evolving over time.
Research offers us insight into the overall user experience. Is the marketplace converting or losing potential revenue? Are there tell-tale signs that users are frustrated by a certain aspect or function? Or is there a particular element which acts as "super-converter", driving buying decisions and, as a result, growth?
That's why our research teams play a crucial role in creating engaging and meaningful customer experiences for our clients - in both B2B and B2C. We are able to understand the "what" in customer behaviour through our market-leading conversion rate optimization (CRO) work and data analytics. Meanwhile, we can also determine the "why" in customer behaviour, through our qualitative and quantitative research work. We can then combine these two elements to draw a complete picture in order to recommend, design, build and test (both through research and A/B testing, iteratively throughout), a solution that meets both customer/user and business needs.
When it comes to creating digital user experiences, we believe that research should consistently be at the front and centre of decision-making, a tool that you deploy and utilise to continually evaluate and reshape your customer experiences.
Our research-centric approach allows us to both optimise and/or personalise experiences to maximise commercial outcomes for our clients. It also gives us the confidence to use leading-edge technologies to create and transform digital experiences.
When talking with our clients, the importance of having capable, dynamic research experts as part of the account team it's always emphasised.
Here are some specific ways in which we have helped businesses create great B2B and B2C digital customer experiences:
We use research to help businesses identify pain points in their customers' digital experience, from simple issues such as slow loading times and difficult navigation to more complex problems such as poor CRO and lack of personalisation.
Research can be used to ensure a digital business' UX has a laser-sharp focus on the needs and preferences of its customers. The goal is to create an engaging and personalised experience that drives growth at every opportunity.
Through research, we help businesses to evaluate the effectiveness of their digital experience, identifying areas for improvement and testing new ideas. This helps ensure that the digital experience is continually evolving and improving to meet the changing needs and expectations of customers.
So how do we do it in practice? What is the life cycle of a typical research project?
The place to start is to identify the problem that needs solving (or the solution that needs creating) and how research can help. The questions we need to answer first are:
The next step is to decide which is the best approach. At this point, we generally break research down into either discovery or evaluative - and from there, qualitative or quantitative:
We may use a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches, alongside data analytics and A/B testing to put together a programme of work that fully answers the clients' question. Additionally, we often design iterative research that begins with discovery work to fully understand the customers/users; and moves through to evaluative. This discovery work will highlight needs and behaviours that can form the basis of metrics to evaluate designs and changes against later on.
When it comes to qualitative research, we use platforms such as usertesting.com and userlytics and work closely with recruiting partners to ensure we find exactly the right participants for the work. For quantitative research, we utilise tools such as Hotjar and Qualtrics and platforms like UsabilityHub.
Our approach of placing research at the heart of UX design means that some of the world's leading brands trust and have us as close partners.
For example, we've helped adidas ensure its customer needs are at the centre of its rapid digital innovation programme. As part of our long-standing partnership, we have been embedded within the adidas global research team for almost five years, managing and carrying out a full programme of research across adidas' digital pillars. We help the brand understand the motivations and needs of their customers and provide a range of services to help them innovate at pace and at scale.
adidas is just one of the major brands that we work with (you can see more here: https://biglight.co.uk/work).
The Biglight research team
