AAWE Score: Mamas & Papas
Read our review of a car seat purchase journey and how well expectations match the reality of the customer experience.
What is the AAWE Score?
Every few weeks, our CX experts review a journey from a different brand’s customer experience, giving a small insight into the work we do with businesses every day. The AAWE Score is calculated by rating initial customer expectations as well as the reality of their experience, both out of 10. We then work out the difference between the two scores to give the final result.
Our aim is to show that balancing customer expectation and the reality of their experience is the most important thing when it comes to designing exceptional experiences.
Buying a car seat from Mamas & Papas
The Expectation
Mamas & Papas is one of the more premium brands aimed at parents. They promise ‘an omni-channel shopping experience with quality at the heart of everything we do’. Having bought from them before – and knowing that their prices are higher than many of their competitors – our expectations of our next car seat purchase were relatively high. So when the January Sales coincided with a need to upsize our current seat, we started by heading to their website to do some research.
Expectation Score: 8.5/10
The Reality
A Frustrating and Limited Digital Experience
Now for the reality. Arriving at the Mamas & Papas website and clicking through to car seats, we soon found ourselves frustrated at the options for filtering results. Anyone who’s ever bought a car seat will know it’s a complicated process at the best of times, and one you definitely want to get right for the safety of your child. But the age ranges on the site didn’t match the manufacturer guidance (which recommends upsizing the current seat we have at 15 months – yet the filter here was from 2 years). We also couldn’t find a way to filter by category groups. Ending up with very limited results, we were left with no option other than to see if a visit to their physical store would be better.
A Mixed In-store Experience
First impressions were positive. Our local Mamas & Papas store looked inviting and well presented, raising our hopes again. There was even half a car in the middle of the store for different seats to be fitted in and out of. Good idea! Well, until you read the signs that said not to lift or handle any of the products. Turns out the only way you can interact with their car seats is to book an appointment. Using the QR code on a leaflet we picked up, we tried to do this, but discovered there were no available appointments in that store for another week. Not ideal.
Some of the car seats had tags on showing the age, height and weight of child they were suitable for. But others had no helpful tags like these (apparently tags are often removed due to price matching), meaning we had no choice but to look for a sales assistant to help. It was at this point that our experience began to improve significantly.
Trained, Expert Staff to the Rescue
The staff member we spoke to was friendly and extremely knowledgeable. We explained our situation and he was able to easily break down our options, going above and beyond with advice on which car seat bases would be most suitable for our family now and in the future. As bases are sometimes as expensive as the seats themselves, this extra insight was much appreciated.
Having chatted everything through with him, we made our choice and he was able to price match it for us, even offering a discount that wasn’t made obvious on their website as well as free delivery (though this couldn’t be next day). Result! We were also impressed that he explained all the aftercare options which come as standard and gave us the numbers we would need, should there be any issues with the car seat. Delivery arranged, and purchase made.
Expectation Score: 7.5/10
The AAWE Score
Reality Score (7.5/10) - Expectation Score (8.5/10) = -1
Reality Score (7.5/10) - 1 = AAWE Score (6.5/10)
Opportunities for growth
Mamas & Papas are already getting a lot of things right – especially the expertise of their in-store staff. But we think the experience of buying a car seat could be improved for customers by taking a few actions. All of which would create business growth too.
Add easily accessible educational content about how to choose the right car seat to their website.
It simply isn’t a scalable approach to have a digital experience which doesn’t actively support the purchase of such a key product as a car seat. Particularly as customer shopping behaviour continues to shift to digital only purchasing. However, there is an opportunity to utilise the excellent in-store staff to enhance the digital experience through video and other educational content to help people to understand the complicated category of car seats, and find the right one for them.
Categorise car seats on their product page to match industry standards, and tag products appropriately to ensure all suitable seats are shown when filters are used.
It should be the case that customers can easily compare car seats no matter where they choose to shop, to reduce their mental load when purchasing. The car seat industry have specific classifications of car seat sizes. For example, Group 0+ or Group 1/2/3. Customers should be able to understand these categories and use filters on the website to find car seats which fit into them. Then, products should be appropriately tagged so all applicable car seats can be shown. Not just one!
Create a ‘build your own package’ digital experience, for example, adding details of your current car seat/s, the age and weight of your child/children, and how long you want the seat/s to last – with all available options clearly presented.
During our purchase journey the penny dropped when talking to the member of the in-store team. He asked us what car seat we currently have, how old our child is now, if we were planning on having any other children, and when that might be. After we shared that information, a more rounded recommendation was able to be offered which perfectly suited our needs. This is an opportunity to create a more personal approach to support sales.
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