During 2019, as we concentrated on batch shipping our product from our factory in China to the UK and USA, allowing us to sell directly from stock we also ensured we were creating a company culture and brand which we could be proud of, and most importantly a positive and enduring Customer Experience.

Having co-founded Swytch with my partner (in life), it was time to adjust our work/life balance and decide how best to begin scaling the operation. We decided it the right time to re-structure the leadership team allowing me to exit the company as an Executive Director and pursue other career goals.

Today, I am a Non-Executive Director acting as an advisor on the board and endeavour to assist where I can whether than be attending events, board meetings, marketing strategy meet ups or future financial planning.

I’m invested in the future of Swytch and believe in the positive impact Innovative Technology can have on our daily lives.

The Objective.

To migrate the existing Swytch customer base onto our own sales platform whilst extending our market reach.

The business needs.

1. To sell in multiple currencies 

2. To reduce platform fees

3. To grow brand awareness

4. To reach new audiences

5. To improve our organic search

6. To up-sell more easily 

7. To improve cashflow (IGG release funds slowly)

Platform.

Website, Google Adwords, Facebook

The challenges

1. Different audience expectations and behaviours. 

2. Risk of losing secured sales (risks to the business if new customers outside of the IGG platform requested refunds if delays occurred).

3. Loss of IGG traffic/support as we funnel sales to our website 

4. Increased cost of paid advertising as we experience with Facebook Audiences 

5. Risk of payment gateway issues if we incur chargebacks due to address discrepancies or disgruntled customers. (IGG protects against this to some degree).

6. Managing multiple platforms (IGG, BackerKit, Swytch Website).

7. Maintaining customer confidence during long waiting times for manufacturing and shipment to begin.

8. Limited budget

9. Limited time

The Role.

• Create new marketing assets.

• Create GoogleAds, Facebook, Quora and premium display Adverts

• Design and launch the Swytch website (with Stripe integration and a backup payment gateway.)

• Understand our customer base. 

• Identify new markets

• Migrate existing customers away from IGG by establishing alternative communication routines and expanding customer service (Emails campaigns & Newsletters, Facebook Forums, Customer Accounts on the Swytch website, FAQ Helpdesk, Live Chat, News & Blogs).

The Solution.

Product Research

I conducted a lot of research online, looking at similar companies who have already attempted this transition. 

Created a matrix of features which worked to incorporate something similar or to use as an indicator measure. 

I spoke to some experts in the field to learn what the risks and issues were which led to certain decisions or what they might do differently.

User Interviews

I sent out surveys to our existing customers to see why they purchased to test against our assumptions and to prepare them for the first transition away from IGG - speaking to us directly.

User Personas & User Flows

• I created an ideal customer profile

• I created an IGG customer persona

• I created a more typical customer persona

• I created a High Expectation Customer Persona

I created a series of work flow diagrams for the different user journeys 

(to ensure we are building all the necessary features for all our customers future and existing.)

Final Product

• The final product included a familiar introduction to the Swytch brand as a crowdfunded startup with Campaign metrics and ‘amount raised’ on the homepage and the Indiegogo logo. 

• The Product details pages were designed in a similar way to the crowdfunding ‘Perks’ in that they introduced the user to the concept of ‘last chance’ time pressures, limited numbers available and large discounts based on the Pre-Order product and not a flash sale. 

• The products unlike IGG were separated having their own names and colour palettes creating subtle mini brands which reflect the product differences and which could be used to drive segments of the market directly to. This was something we could not do before and allowed us to gather vital data from our advertising and traffic engagement. 

• Now that we had separate products and landing pages, the advertising could be customised by product. I created separate display adverts per product to drive to the website.

• I merged the existing orders into our Wordpress Website where possible and customised the Customer Account to let existing customer log into the new platform to see important order progress information. 

• I created a range of personalised email templates which customers had not received before and scheduled notifications to go out automatically with regular updates and progress reports (incorporating the WordPress Statuses feature).

• I designed different branded email templates such as newsletter updates, and segmented the email lists on mail chimp, allowing us to change the tone and style as well as the information sent to our two differing user groups.  

Results

• Within two months we were able to close the campaign on IGG and consolidate our learnings from our Digital Marketing, effectively driving all traffic to our own platform.

• We drove sales forward via our marketing and website conversions throughout December which is the down season for the cycling industry and the Swytch Product.

• We were able to take payments in GBP, EUR and USD

• We were able administor any refunds directly via stripe immediately when required which would reflect the orders in the back-end of Wordpress and our manufacturing order slips.

• We were able to communicate with all our customers automatically via our own platform with customised information, segmenting our customers by batch number and status reducing mitigating misunderstandings about delivery time between those who order 6 months earlier than those ordering later on our website. 

• We were able respond fast to customer by posting communication via separate Facebook groups which were also self serving and community based.

• Our growing customer service and self serve articles increased conversion on the website which we could track.