Savant Talks: Kattis Åström on the importance of CX

Get ready to dive into the world of customer experience with Kattis Åström, Chief Experience Officer at CDON. With a background rooted in the nonprofit sector, Kattis brings a unique perspective to the e-commerce industry, emphasizing the importance of strategic marketing and customer-centric approaches. Join us as Kattis shares her insights on driving sales, enhancing profitability, and the pivotal role of customer experience in today’s competitive landscape.

Tell us about your career so far. How did you get to CDON?

I became CXO at CDON after the company acquired Fyndiq in April last year. Before that I was CXO of Fyndiq. I ended up in the e-commerce industry by coincidence, having spent more than a decade in the nonprofit world and through that I learned how to be tactical in marketing and especially through earned and owned channels. With less money than everyone else you need to be streetsmart to gain visibility and attract visitors. That turned out to be pretty good skills also in the profit-world.

Bottom line versus adding value to customer experiences: is there a strong case for focusing on customer experience as a means to drive sales and increase profitability?

It’s a fact that it will cost you approximately five times more to acquire new customers than to keep your current ones. You need to target the right prospects at the right time, you need to spend money on advertising and then you need to convince them to try your brand for their next purchase. With your existing customers you have already done all that and can focus on continuing to deliver a great customer experience to keep them coming back. There is usually also a significant difference in customer value between your customers with newsletter consent and those without. I have worked with companies that have seen a 60% higher customer value on both spend and frequency for the group with consent, but it requires that you are relevant and personal with your email communication. And let’s not forget our employees, companies that  are centred around customer satisfaction consistently outshine other companies in financial performance and employee engagement.

Looking at it from a business perspective, why is providing fantastic CX so important for you at CDON?

First of all the most fundamental part – Without customers there is no business!

But today, where products and assortment are easily duplicated, you need a unique and memorable customer experience to stand out and to keep your customers. As we will talk about in our session at the conference, you can only keep loyal customers through great experiences. There are no shortcuts that are profitable in the long run. 

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel” –  Maya Angelou, American author.

From the experiences you’ve had so far, in which areas do you see businesses lacking when it comes to customer experience?

It’s interesting to see that CX has become something on everyone’s mind now, driven by a more challenging macro that forces businesses to become profitable. But still too often it’s a buzzword, and that won’t change a thing for those companies. You need to stand up for great customer experience also when times are tougher, you need to sometimes skip a short term gain and instead focus on the long term benefit. And I still see too many leaders thinking that customer experience equals customer service, but then you just get a friction of the customer journey and that won’t cut it for today’s customers. You need to have that focus and vision for the entire journey – from the discovery phase all the way to phase where the customer gets to use their purchase.

Which exciting developments are you hoping to see in the world of eCommerce in 2024?

AI of course, both in how we can find ways to use it to help our customers throughout the customer journey, but also it’s a great tool for deep dives into insights and data to help us shape a great experience. 

I also hope that more and more businesses will move away from “everything to everyone” when it comes to marketing. It’s harmful for the rest of us as we share customers and with that their attention span and interest in receiving emails and ads. 

Final wish is to see more executives that realize that building great customer experience is a marathon, it takes time to see the big improvements. But you need to start now and stick with it, if not you will be left behind when a more demanding and savvy generation becomes your target group.

Thank you to Kattis Åström for sharing her invaluable insights with us. Her knowledge and expertise teach us to listen more to our customers, providing them with more personalised experiences, which will in end benefit everyone. 

If you’re eager to learn more from Kattis and other esteemed speakers, don’t miss the upcoming events. Join us to connect with industry leaders, gain actionable strategies, and uncover the latest trends shaping the future of e-commerce.