How Hello Fresh Nails the Customer Experience

Love them or loathe them, Hello Fresh is the largest meal-kit provider in the world. When it comes to their marketing, there is a bunch we can learn from them, but there is also one critical fault which other brands would do well to avoid.

Referral Marketing

“Your friend Holly Murphy has given you up to $139 to spend on food this week.”

I’d heard of Hello Fresh before, how could I not? They spend a fortune on Facebook ads featuring influencers, and while most of the celebrities looked like they’d never boiled an egg before, one featured Mandy Moore, and I love Mandy Moore.


Image courtesy of Mandy Moore on Instagram

But I’d never really considered trying a meal kit company because, not to toot my own horn, but when it comes to the kitchen, I have skills.

But free groceries that I don’t need to drive down to the store to pick up with two kids in tow is not something I’m silly enough to turn down. Plus that was very thoughtful of Holly.

Except I forgot about it. But 20 days later they reminded me with the same subject line but a nudge to claim that free box, so I did.

User Experience (UX)

The Hello Fresh platform is a thing of real beauty to use and explore. I’m low-key obsessed with how they display their meal listings. From the handy tags to the cooking time to the food porn photography.

What’s more, Hello Fresh is well versed on colour psychology. Green appeals to both men and women but it’s also associated with creativity, nature, environment, and organic produce. It also happens to be the colour of vegetables, universal symbols of health, and well-being.

Image courtesy of HelloFresh

Anytime I’d try to do anything other than just browse on mobile, I’d get frustrated and abandon it until I was back at my desktop. But I managed to create my account, pick my meals, and set up the delivery intervals right from the mobile version of their platform. They also do have an app but I have not downloaded it.

Exclusive Elements

I received my first box and my first impression was, “holy ship, look at all this packaging.” While somewhat practical to separate out all the ingredients for each meal kit into an individual brown bag, it did mean a lot of wrapping, and four ice packs was perhaps overkill. Because the brown bags all look the same, they place a different coloured sticker on the outside of each one and then the same colour sticker is on the corresponding recipe card. Clever!

Hello Fresh prides itself on simple, healthy meals. It’s real food. But what is stopping customers from holding onto the recipe cards and just replicating the dishes themselves? Exclusive elements. The Sichuan garlic paste is Hello Fresh branded, same with the Tex-Mex spice blend, the red pesto, smokey aioli, and the enchilada sauce. Being the cook that I am, those ingredients are what bring the flavour and make the dish.

Post-Purchase

For the customer, the journey does not end with the purchase, yet so many brands spectacularly suck at the post-purchase stage of the customer journey. After my week of meals, I received two emails with just-as-catchy subject lines asking me to rate my recipes and whether I would recommend Hello Fresh. Asking for feedback not only provides valuable customer data for Hello Fresh but also made me feel like my opinion is important.

 
And now for the critical failure.

When I claimed Holly’s free box, I opted that my deliveries come every four weeks. And then I promptly forgot about it until I saw a charge on my credit card for $150. I logged on to Hello Fresh to see that a box was coming and it was now too late to pick the meals. I was getting what I was getting and there was nothing to be done about it. I immediately cancelled my account. Not paused, but done.

Hello Fresh had sent me eight emails to date but failed to communicate at a moment that mattered along the customer journey; an upcoming delivery with a reminder to pick the meals. This was, of course, intentional to make sure they got the sale. But it cost them the relationship.

This is a common sales tactic, and some industries even depend on it as a source of revenue (hello, gym memberships). But just like gyms have had to move to no lock-in contracts to win back members, it’s time for brands to draw a line on these quick-win sales tactics if they want to retain customers. Since 65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers, retaining customers is the better bet over short term sales.

 

Hello Fresh failed to see that existing customers are not just the dough and the yeast — they are the whole friggin baguette.

For what it’s worth, the meals they picked were pretty good, but as anyone who has ever had to pay for a subscription they no longer wanted but were locked into will attest, it doesn’t leave you with the warm and fuzzies.

The lesson here is that brands can absolutely do all the right things, and even exceed expectations, but one disappointment at a moment that really matters along the customer journey is all it takes to undo all that good juju.

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This article was originally published in Better Marketing on Medium 

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