Yossi Erdman, head of brand and social at AO.com

In the past 15 years, AO.com has been successfully working in the UK – and in 2014, they began a journey to transform the white goods market in Germany. We asked Yossi Erdman, head of brand and social at AO.com how this has been coming along.

“We believe using real customers who have experienced our service and given us amazing reviews, really helps to tell the AO story”

Entering the German market, which already had strong and established players was no easy task, but we are very proud of our progress so far. We are really pleased to see how our customers have responded to our proposition, they love the service we give them, the attention to detail we deliver, the option to choose a delivery day that suits them and how they can have their wet fridge or washing machine installed too. I know it doesn’t sound that exciting, but for a customer with two young babies who needs a washing machine quickly, this level of care and service is vital.

We were bold when we launched our TV adverts in Germany this year and they have resonated well with the market, people are definitely now much more aware of AO. Online retail is not as established in Germany as it is in the UK, so we feel we are actually educating the market on how to buy these items online, we are very happy with how it has gone so far (even if our competitors also benefit from this shift to online).

So what works for AO and what doesn’t?
At AO we always put the customer at the heart of everything we do and want to ensure that we make their purchase journey as easy as possible. We are not re-inventing the wheel and we are not using complicated technology, we are an online company that believes in old-fashioned human interaction. During my presentation I will show you some examples of our “customer centric” approach, from our social media activities, to the website, to our adverts in the UK and Germany. Fancy advertising slogans and super sophisticated advertising don’t work for us, we want our adverts to be ‘human’ and to show the customer that we care and are serious about their happiness. We believe using real customers who have experienced our service and given us amazing reviews, really helps to tell the AO story. Particularly in a world where peer-to-peer recommendation is so powerful – just look at Uber and TripAdvisor.

We make it simple, customers can see the product they are ordering, watch a video about how it works, choose their delivery date, get it delivered by an AO van, straight to your kitchen, crisis sorted.