Anthony Brown
MBA 532
2/9/2016
Sephora Direct Case Analysis I am lucky to have some additional contextual information about Sephora’s online marketing efforts in the years leading up to this case. Until roughly 2007, Sephora.com was built using Amazon search, browse, and checkout technology, as well as hosted on Amazon servers. Sephora was responsible for their own customer service, but we were tasked with fixing any technical issue with the website. Although online sales had been increasing at a relatively steady rate year over year (as seen in exhibit 10), they were not meeting the company’s expectations. The marketing executives I worked with were convinced that random, nebulous technical issues with the website were to blame. Unfortunately, we were never able to recreate or substantiate most of the technical problems they reported, and both sides ended up wasting a lot of time and effort. As a result, the relationship between our two companies began to suffer, and they left the Amazon platform in late 2008. I am happy to see that as of 2010, the folks who were leading Sephora’s marketing efforts were focusing on new strategies and technologies, instead of hyper focusing on their own website as their singular online presence. Although Sephora.com is an important part of their customer experience, the focus of the website (and the mobile site & app) should be to drive customer purchases. Sephora’s social interactions with customers should be primarily focused on external sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Instead of forums on their own website, Sephora might consider creating a live chat feature where customers can interact with a customer service agent more privately. Sometimes people are hesitant to discuss an issue such as wrinkles or acne over the phone, or especially in a public forum. However, a chat feature is less intrusive and allows the customer to maintain a sense of anonymity. Sephora’s chat agents would be trained with the same level of knowledge that their in-store representatives have, so that they can provide the same level of assistance. If the chat session resulted in a purchase, a follow up email could be sent from the customer service agent to the customer, asking them how the product was working, and arranging any return or exchange as needed. If no purchase occurred, a follow up could still be generated, perhaps offering the customer a nominal discount on the products that were discussed via chat. This chat system differentiates itself by being live, relatively anonymous, and helping customers actually transact on the site. Public discussions can continue on Facebook, but focused customer conversations would occur via chat. The aforementioned chat feature could be promoted on other social media outlets, in order to make sure customers are getting the service they need. For example, if someone goes on the Facebook page and rants about a bad experience, the Sephora employees who monitor their Facebook site can direct the angry customer to use the Sephora.com chat support in order to get help. If the customer has not previously gone to Sephora.com, the positive chat experience could cause them to return to the site in the future. With regard to their current external social media efforts, steps should be taken to minimize the duplication of effort across the different platforms. At Amazon, there was one “social media team” that was responsible for monitoring Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and any other outlet where Amazon was being discussed. In many cases a customer would complain in multiple places, so it was advantageous for one central team to manage that external customer interaction. Sephora needs to take steps to ensure that they are not triaging the same customer with different employees on different websites. This is why a centralized, real time chat feature on their website would work so well. Pushing customers back to Sephora.com ensures a consistent experience, with minimal overlap or waste. Ultimately Sephora needs to leverage the external communication options that already exist, in order to drive customers back to the Sephora website to make purchases and get help with past transactions. Although there is an opportunity to gain customers by creating video content, developing cool new apps, and flashy animated web content, these efforts should be secondary. Improving customer service with increased responsiveness across media channels, while simultaneously avoiding overlap, will be Sephora’s best option to differentiate themselves via communication.