“At its core, Bonjoro isn’t about video. It’s simply a conduit to make a personal connection,” says … [+]
Getty
One of the major advantages of brick-and-mortar retail is the ability to make a personal connection with shoppers. That personal touch is absolutely priceless when it comes to building a bond with the customer.
In that realm, e-commerce retailers are at a distinct disadvantage. While online instant messaging lends some semblance of there being a person behind the screen, it is hardly a substitute for a welcoming smile or an engaging chat with a sales person in the shop.
As much as e-commerce retailers try to personalize the digital experience through algorithms and messaging, they remain faceless online destinations designed only to conduct transactions. Customers know there must be people behind the scenes but the human connection is missing.
To bridge that gap comes Bonjoro, a company that provides personalized video messages to customers’ email inboxes. Video communications is tailor made for the point-and-click, selfie-obsessed, YouTube generation.
“Video is the medium we’re offering for communications,” says millennial Casey Hill, growth manager at Bonjoro. “But at its core, Bonjoro isn’t about video. It’s simply a conduit to make a personal connection.”
The company came about by accident, through an observation company-founder Matt Barnett made running his Sydney-based video consumer research firm Verbate. Not only did he deliver to his clients videos of their customers interacting with their products, he accompanied his research reports with a personal video as well.
The clients loved those personal video messages so much that it struck him the use of video had applications far beyond research.
Bonjoro was born in 2017. In a little over a year, Bonjoro had far surpassed the research business that he had operated for seven years and today it has expanded from Australia to London and the U.S.
How it works
Bonjoro is a simple application that allows a company to record a video on a computer or cell phone, then immediately send it out to someone’s email. For example, it can be used to say thank you for a recent purchase and gives e-commerce retailers a chance to put a face to the brand. It is a powerful way to let the customer know the company cares enough to take time to record a personal message.
But it can also be used for any customer communication, like answering a customer inquiry sent through the company website.
“Say you get a ping that a form has just been sent. Instead of typing out a message, all you have to do is hit record and in real time, the customer gets a personal message, not some impersonal text message,” Hill explains.
Along with the personal videos, each message is accompanied by a call-to-action (CTA) button. So for a customer inquiry, the CTA button might connect the customer with a product selection that answers his or her need.
Besides the advantage of putting a face out in front of an e-commerce brand, the video communications are more likely to be opened than plain-vanilla text messages.
“It helps companies win in the inbox,” Hill explains. “People are so used to seeing standard generic pitches and automated messages. Customers feel they are just part of a process which can lead them to divorce from the brand. Receiving a video message breaks through the noise.”
While Bonjoro is founded on the idea of one-on-one communication, it can also be used to send to a wider audience, like announcing a new shipment to a retailers’ best customers or an invitation to a special event. Hill explains that ISP protocols sometimes create deliverability issues for videos, so the company allows bulk sends in increments of 50 recipients at a time.
How Munk Store uses it
The power of using video to bridge the impersonal communications gap for online retailers is clear in this video prepared by Mikkel at Denmark-based Munk Store, a fashion boutique which started out in 2003 as a brick-and-mortar retailer then added online e-commerce in 2011.
You don’t need to speak Danish to see how effective this communication is, but subtitles provide the translation.
Don’t just say hello, say Bonjoro!
Through the use of Bonjoro’s video app, Munk Store is able to deliver the same quality of personal service to online customers as in the store.
The results are impressive for this company with only 17 employees. Andreas Lodahl, Munk Store’s e-commerce manager, reports that its email open rates are up over 25%, click rates have nearly doubled and customers are leaving 10% more reviews that previously.
All that engagement has shot Munk Store to the top of the men’s fashion category in Denmark according to Trustpilot, a review aggregate site.
“Bonjoro has made it possible for Munk Store to make a real connection with our customers,” Lodahl says. “By being one of the few using Bonjoro in Denmark and in our segment, the impact has been enormous.”
Building trust one video at a time
Bonjoro is priced right even for small retailers. It starts with a basic package allowing one user to send up to 50 videos for $15 per month. Hill says its growth package, which allows for unlimited videos, is its most popular, priced at $79 per month for the first user and an additional $20 for each additional user.
Further, Bonjoro has application far beyond e-commerce retailers to any business large or small that wants to elevate their digital communications from text to the more personal medium of video.
In closing, I asked Hill about the effectiveness of Bonjoro for smaller companies without the luxury of producing professional-quality videos.
“That is the real beauty of Bonjoro,” he says. These amateur-produced videos don’t read as slick marketing, but as personal communications.
“At the core level it comes down to trust. The imperfections of the video makes it relatable. It doesn’t feel contrived or staged. It isn’t polished. It harkens back to when business was done person-to-person,” he says, though he adds the company provides advice on how to light and film the most impactful videos.
The key to unlocking the power of video communications is to be real, personal, and authentic. “Business relationships, just like personal relationships, are built on trust,” he concludes.
“When you are looking at a person so much information is delivered beyond the words said. There’s body language, facial expressions, tone of voice. In digital communications, these are unique to the medium of video. It puts a personal face to an e-commerce brand that can’t be delivered in any other way.”
