👌 Getting started with Aiden: What you should know (and do!)
When you get started with guided selling, you want to launch your first product finder quickly. This doesn't need to take more than 2-4 weeks and can even be done within a few days. But you need to be well-prepared. A rollout plan, product feed, and involving the right colleagues are crucial for a flying start.
Starting with guided selling isn't rocket science, especially if you use Aiden. In fact, the average lead time between toasting our collaboration and going live with the first product finder is 2-3 weeks. There are even online stores that went live with the first product finder just four days after our introduction.
You can read here how to create a product finder. And here you can read what you can expect from us in terms of support.
To go live as quickly as possible, it helps a lot if you have certain things in order before you start with Aiden. In this article, you can read what you can prepare in advance.
1. Determine your focus: which product finders will you start with?
A solid rollout plan is half the battle. Creating product finders is faster if you know what they should be about 😉.
Okay, makes sense. How do I determine that? In short: choose the product categories where you have a large product range and that represent a lot of revenue and traffic. These are the categories where you can make a quick impact and gather a lot of data. That impact creates support, and that data helps you to make the product finders even stronger. And to efficiently roll out to more "long tail" categories later.
Of course, there are more factors - besides range, traffic, and revenue - that can influence the priority list in the rollout. Think of product categories where a lot of questions come in at customer service, or where you see a high return rate. In this article, we help you plot the full potential if you want to dig deeper right away.
2. Ensure an extensive product feed
You’ll first come up with the questions and answers for your product finder. Then you match each product with each answer — this is how you determine the advisory logic for your product finder. To do this well and quickly, you use Aiden’s ‘matching rules’. If you have 20 answers, you only need to create 20 rules, and the advisory logic for your entire product finder is ready!
To create such an advisory rule, it’s very helpful if the products in your product feed contain as many attributes (specifications) as possible. An example:
The first question in your product finder is 'Where will you use your headphones?' and one of the answers is 'In the gym'. Then you create a matching rule that states that all headphones with the attribute 'waterproof' and 'bluetooth' perfectly match the answer 'In the gym'. Because we assume that there will be a lot of sweating (= waterproof) and that it’s convenient to move freely (= bluetooth).
So you see that it’s important that your product feed has enough attributes to match the answers in your product finder to products. In fact, the more extensive your feed, the better. This will help you offer more questions and answers to customers and match them more nuanced, so you can provide even more targeted advice. Here you can read which fields your feed should contain at a minimum.
3. Involve the right colleagues and reserve some time
You usually don't create a product finder alone. You need knowledge from colleagues at some points. For example, think of the product knowledge needed to determine the advisory logic or technical knowledge for placing it on the website. For convenience, here’s an overview of who you need for what:
Project lead / Content marketer: This person is the 'product finder boss' on your side. He or she creates the product finder, links the product feed, and receives and processes feedback from Aiden’s guided selling experts (we do a review of the app before going live!). Allow a total of 4 to 5 hours for this, depending on the complexity of the product finder.
Product expert / Category manager: If expert knowledge is needed to match the products, a product expert can help set the matching rules in 1 to 2 hours.
Developer / Agency: Someone with technical knowledge places the Aiden script, the Impact Script, and the apps themselves on the website. This should take no more than 1 hour of work. You may also need this person to ensure that the product feed is as extensive as possible (see point 2).
So, do you know which categories you want to start with, do you have an online and extensive feed for these products available, and do you have the right colleagues in sight to support this? Then we’re ready to start our collaboration. We’re excited!
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