Customer case

Librairies indépendantes du Québec

An email reminder following an abandoned cart to increase conversions

The Librairies indépendantes du Québec cooperative brings together, under the banner of Les libraires, over 100 independent bookstores in Quebec, the Maritimes and Ontario. These members have the book and the reader at heart as well as the dynamism of the literary milieu.

These bookstores are also united on a transactional site that always offers a choice of more than 1,300,000 French-language paper and digital books.

Their mandate is based on proximity, diversity and service. They are not part of a chain or commercial group and generally have no more than five points of sale. Each of them has its own personality. It is a place of advice where the book is often put forward.

An independent bookseller distinguishes himself by his knowledge and passion of the trade, his professionalism, his quality service and his involvement in his community.

logo_leslibraires

Company size
Cooperative of over 100 booksellers

Field of activity
Retail

Scope of solution
Province of Quebec, Maritimes and Ontario

Project
Marketing automation

Contextualization

Optimizing the use of data

Within the framework of the partnership between LIQ and Dialog Insight, and to optimize the use of data in order to offer more relevant communications, several mandates were carried out. First and foremost, the connectivity of the transaction system for maximum agility in the use of data.

The confinement caused by the pandemic led to an explosion in book purchases. On the Web, many transactions were not completed and not tracked. This was a potential missed revenue opportunity for all booksellers.

In addition, at this time, the holiday season, which brings more buyers than the rest of the year, is fast approaching. It was important not to miss this opportunity for the implementation of the abandonned cart strategy!

Our mandate

The initial mandate was twofold: to create an automated process for the long term, while taking advantage of the peak Christmas period to set up a one-time campaign.

From a technical point of view, the connectivity to the transactional system had to be optimal in order to obtain complete information on abandoned carts.

Challenges

  • Very short development and implementation period
  • Anonymous users cannot be targeted
  • Limited ability to determine if the product that remained in the cart was a simple oversight, a change of intent, or a failure due to product unavailability
  • Adding to this automated mechanism a notion of proximity with the bookstore
Solution implemented

Automated post-purchase feedback

A 2-phases scenario

Target customers who leave one or more items in their shopping cart while shopping on the leslibraires.ca website. This is done through a reminder process that is automatically triggered to stimulate the customer to take action and finalize the transaction. The automation responds to the importance of reacting quickly, at the right time.

Phase 1: Manual sending to target all customers with items remaining in their shopping cart for the last 7 days prior to the deployment of the solution.

Phase 2: Automation of the scenario.

panier_abandonne_LIQ

 

Solution implemented

  • Cross-referencing of product(s) purchased versus cart item(s) to recognize the customer with an abandoned cart.
  • Although it was not possible to identify if the items in the abandoned cart were out of stock, it was decided to implement the solution anyway, since its benefits surpassed this constraint.
  • From an exemplary customer service perspective, an invitation to contact the bookstore was added, considering that the customer may have had difficulty completing the order.

Targeting :

  • Consumers (individuals) and not institutional clients (libraries, schools, CEGEPs and universities)
  • Identified customers (i.e. those with an email address) and logged into their account
  • Only customers with products in their shopping cart from the previous day for whom there is no transaction for the same period
courriel_panier_abandonné

Process

  • Data transferred twice a day
  • 9am daily deployment – using previous day’s data

Strategy: 1 email, no follow-up.

Communication axis: Simple reminder accompanied by an offer to call customer service if a difficulty was encountered in completing the transaction. Using Les libraires visual image.

Personnalization: In addition to the basic personalization such as the name:

  • Different introduction based on one or more products
  • Product information (image, title, author, publisher)
  • Up to a maximum of 4 items; products are prioritized according to the order in which they are placed in the cart.

CTA: To cart

ciblage_panier_abandonné

We were already more than pleased with the impact (ROI) of our weekly newsletter, which is rich in content and customized to the customers’ literary preferences. Dialog Insight’s abandonned cart solution has allowed us to impressively monetize our license and recapture those customers who stumbled on a transaction we worked so hard to generate.

Independent booksellers in Quebec can now:

– Benefit from the indisputable impact of the abandoned cart on sales, customer relations and customer engagement.
– Create an additional opportunity to engage with customers who, following the email reminder, request a follow-up when the book is available at the bookstore of their choice. Sometimes, an abandoned cart is simply due to a book being out of stock or to opt for in-store pickup rather than postal delivery. An interaction that turns a less desired situation into a positive!
– The project was carried out in a simple and quick way; the return on investment is immediate.

Jean-Benoît Dumais
General Manager

The results

Since the implementation of the abandoned cart reminder, 28% of sales generated by our Dialog Insight communications have come from it.

52.7%

Average open rate

19.6%

Average click-through rate

Do as LIQ

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