The Lenovo Consumer Digital Journey

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Table of Contents

Background
Industry
Targeted Customers
Purchase Process
Mapping the Digital Journey
Critical Analysis of the Customer Experience
Critical Analysis of the Company’s Online Organic Presence
Recommendations for Better Online Organic Presence
Recommendations for Overall Rewarding Customer Experience
References

The firm for which this paper will map a consumer digital journey is one of the world’s leading technology companies, Lenovo. The reason for selecting this organization is that it is a large international company with an extensive online presence: it has a website and multiple social media accounts in English. The specific product for which the customer’s online journey will be built is Lenovo Legion 5 17ACH6H, a laptop for gaming.

Background

Lenovo emerged in 1984 in Beijing and was initially known under the name Legend. Its founder, Liu Chuanzhi, who was a computer scientist, tried several ways to run a business: he and his small team of engineers imported televisions, did quality checks on computers, and marketed a digital watch. Yet, all these attempts failed because they were “mainly scientists and didn’t understand the market” (Zwanenburg & Farhoomand, 2018, p. 455). The company began to grow after it first succeeded in developing circuit boards that allowed IBM PCs to process Chinese characters (Zwanenburg & Farhoomand, 2018). In 1990, the firm started to manufacture and sell computers, and in 2004, it adopted a new name — Lenovo. In 2005, the company expanded internationally by acquiring IBM’s PC division, which led the company’s turnover to increase fourfold (Zwanenburg & Farhoomand, 2018). Its business grew mainly due to a rise in PC sales and multiple acquisitions of other businesses. Currently, Lenovo sells a wide range of products in countries all over the world and is the world’s leading manufacturer of PCs.

Industry

Lenovo manufactures and markets a wide range of products and, thus, operates in several industries related to technology. The primary industry is personal computers; Lenovo’s acquisition of IBM’s PC division in 2005 was a turning point in this industry since it shifted the balance of powers to Asian countries (Pasalic & Pavic, 2021). Lenovo’s share in the PC market increased from 20.7% in 2016 to 24.9% in 2020, making it the largest PC manufacturer in the world (Pasalic & Pavic, 2021). Yet, as laptops, tablets, and smartphones started to gain popularity with consumers, the PC industry began to decline.

The change in customer preferences urged Lenovo to innovate rapidly and search for new sources of growth. In 2009, Lenovo entered the smartphone market, and in 2016, its share was 4.6% of global sales (Zwanenburg & Farhoomand, 2018). Since 2014, Lenovo has invested in smartphone innovation to increase its market share, but it was difficult to compete with the well-established businesses of Samsung, Huawei, and Apple (Zwanenburg & Farhoomand, 2018). One of the key Lenovo’s innovations in this industry is Phab smartphones, which allow consumers to use augmented reality. Furthermore, the company’s experience in manufacturing both PCs and smartphones enabled it to invest in creating a cross-product ecosystem, similar to that existing in Apple’s products, and in developing cloud services.

Targeted Customers

Lenovo serves a wide range of customers with diverse needs. The key target market is individuals with an upper middle income who use electronic devices more often than other population groups. Apart from individual consumers, Lenovo sells its products to corporate customers. As for the product selected for mapping the digital journey, its target audience is gamers. These customers are distinguished by high brand loyalty, meaning that it can be difficult for Lenovo to win over consumers who are already loyal to different brands (Brand&Deliver, 2019). In addition, Lenovo’s Legion brand targets individuals for whom games are an essential part of their identity and who consider themselves “elite enough to be involved with the brand” (Brand&Deliver, 2019, para. 8). Thus, although Lenovo’s target audience is large, it devises specific products to meet the needs of particular customer groups.

Purchase Process

Problem Recognition

The first stage of the consumer journey is problem recognition. Customers may acknowledge the existence of a problem either because they have an unmet internal need or in response to external stimuli, such as advertising. Before purchasing the Lenovo Legion 5 laptop, I saw a trailer for Elden Ring on one of the gaming YouTube channels to which I was subscribed. As a devotee of the Souls series, I could not miss this game. However, upon checking the recommended system requirements, I found that my current laptop’s characteristics were not sufficient for getting the best gaming experience. As a result, I recognized a problem — a need for a more powerful laptop.

Information Search

After identifying a problem, consumers start gathering information, relying on external (media content, word of mouth) and internal (previous experiences with the brand) sources. At this stage of the customer journey, I conducted a thorough information search on the internet since a laptop is a complex and expensive product. I looked through lists of best gaming laptops, read customer reviews, and watched product review videos.

Alternatives Evaluation

At the end of the previous step, I came up with a list of criteria that the desired product had to meet. The key criteria were as follows: RAM of 16 GB, graphics — Nvidia GeForce GTX 3060, and a full HD display with a screen size of 17 inches. Upon comparing suitable gaming laptops of such brands as Lenovo, Razer, Asus, and Acer, my choice fell on the Lenovo Legion 5 17ACH6H laptop. This product was preferred over competitors’ offerings because of an optimal price-quality ratio and a convenient keyboard. In addition, I had a positive experience with Lenovo’s brand before, which also contributed to the decision.

Purchase Decision

At this stage, I visited Lenovo’s website to complete a purchase online. The website guided me throughout the process: first, I had to add the laptop with the necessary technical characteristics to the basket. Then, Lenovo allowed me to choose additional services: warranty, accidental damage protection, and smart privacy. Further, I chose software from the available options (PDF, Adobe, security, graphics, web design, multimedia, cloud storage, and backup software). Finally, the website offered me to purchase accessories for the laptop (monitors, keyboards, mice, audio, webcams, and storage and optical devices). In the end, I was redirected to the page where I could check all the order details and proceed to checkout. The payment process was easy, and delivery terms were clearly explained.

Post-Purchase Behavior

Lenovo places great emphasis on customer care and ensures that consumers are satisfied with its products and support services. After ordering a laptop from Lenovo’s website, I received an order confirmation email with a link to the order details page. Part of the company’s customer care is the return policy. According to it, customers can contact Lenovo’s support within seven days after delivery and return the product for free if it is defective and for a fee of 15-20% of the purchase price if customers change their minds. The company also provides online technical support to its clients.

Mapping the Digital Journey

Figure 1 shows the customer’s digital journey when buying the Lenovo Legion 5 17ACH6H laptop. The diagram covers all the touch points at which the customer interacted with the brand — from problem recognition to post-purchase service. In the given case, Lenovo’s website was not the initial touch point; rather, the customer’s encounter with the brand occurred in the digital media not owned by the company.

Critical Analysis of the Customer Experience

Online Presence

Lenovo has an extensive online presence: its website is available in multiple countries around the world. The website automatically determines the user’s geographic location and adjusts the content and product offerings accordingly. Furthermore, Lenovo has accounts on such social media as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Flickr. The company’s social media accounts also differ depending on the user’s location. For example, it has separate Facebook accounts for customers in UK and Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, and the United States. Links to the firm’s social media are provided on the home page and landing pages, which makes it convenient for consumers to engage with the company. On the customer journey, no issues with Lenovo’s online presence were found: the information about the company and its products was readily available, and the order could be placed easily.

Digital Marketing Tools

Lenovo uses a range of digital marketing tools to promote its products. One tool is personalization: the company’s website changes based on the customer’s location, and it provides consumers with the opportunity to create an account to track orders and engage with the brand in other ways. Another digital tool is influencer marketing; for example, the company used this instrument to promote its YOGA line of products. Its #Goodweird campaign engaged influencers from YouTube in creating video content, and it was a success, especially in countries with high daily use of social media (Backaler, 2018). The UX and design is another digital tool successfully used by Lenovo, and the company’s website is a good example of it. According to Indiani and Fahik (2020), a website should be convenient, easy to use, and secure to convert leads into customers. Lenovo’s website complies with these characteristics: its interface is intuitive, and the necessary information can be easily found. In addition, Lenovo recognizes the importance of users’ privacy and takes the necessary measures to ensure secure transactions.

Critical Analysis of the Company’s Online Organic Presence

Lenovo’s website contributes to a positive consumer experience through user-friendly design, structured and comprehensive information about products, and links to the company social media allowing customers to engage with the brand. Further, an SEO audit of Lenovo’s landing page will be performed to identify its strengths and weaknesses and suggest improvements. The SEO audit was conducted using SEO Site Checkup, and Lenovo’s landing page for the Legion 5 17ACH6H laptop scored 62 (see figure 2). In comparison, a landing page of Lenovo’s competitor, Razer, scored 72, suggesting that Lenovo’s SEO performance is lower than that of other industry players.

Figure 2. Comparison of SEO scores of two landing pages: Lenovo’s page for Lenovo Legion 5 17 and Razer’s page for Razer Blade 14

The key SEO issues identified during the audit are as follows:

the webpage contains not SEO-friendly URLs;
the CLS score is 0.302, while the target score is 0.1 or less;
the website is not using a custom 404 error page;
the webpage is using render-blocking resources;
the webpage is not using images in a modern format;
the loading time is about 7.7 seconds, while the average speed is 5 seconds;
the page size is 113.88 Kb, while the average size is 33 Kb.

The first issue related to the webpage’s URL seems to be unjustified. According to Roumeliotis, K. I., & Tselikas (2021), SEO-friendly URLs consist of relevant words, hyphens, and slashes, while non-SEO-friendly URLs contain numbers and question marks. Although Lenovo’s webpage contains numbers, they are not random but describe the model of the laptop. Apart from this issue, Lenovo’s URLs are relevant to the content of the webpage and contain hyphens and slashes.

The next two issues are related to online customer experience. CLS stands for Cumulative Layout Shift and measures the score of all unexpected layout shifts that occur throughout the webpage lifecycle (Sumedrea et al., 2022). A score over 0.25 is considered poor, meaning that Lenovo needs substantial improvements in this area. On my customer journey, I once noticed that the top menu buttons overlapped the buttons “Service,” “Software,” “Accessories,” and “Proceed to checkout,” which made the purchase experience somewhat unpleasant. Another issue — the absence of the custom 404 page — may cause Lenovo to lose its website traffic because customers may think that the entire website is broken. All the remaining problems — the use of render-blocking resources, improper image formats, and increased loading time and page size — cause Lenovo’s webpages to load at a lower speed than customers expect. This issue can lead to a loss of some potential buyers who will close the page before it loads completely.

Despite these problems, Lenovo performs well in different areas of SEO. For example, its website design is responsive, making its use comfortable for both desktop and mobile users. The website has a sitemap file, employs Google Analytics, is connected with social media, and utilizes a caching mechanism for decreasing loading time. In addition, it applies secure communication protocols and is viewed by browsers as safe.

Recommendations for Better Online Organic Presence

The issues identified during the SEO audit suggest areas of improvement. First, Lenovo should reduce the CLS score on its website. This improvement can be made by reserving the necessary space for images and videos, including size attributes in these elements, avoiding entering new content above the existing content without user interaction, and using transformation animations (Sumedrea et al., 2022). These modifications will ensure that no changes in the page content or layout will occur unexpectedly for customers. Another recommendation is to customize the website’s 404 error page. Customization implies adding pointers to the home page, other website pages, or even references to other websites with relevant content (Ziakis et al., 2019). This improvement will keep the users on the website and enhance their online experience.

The SEO audit also demonstrated that Lenovo’s website has a set of issues decreasing its loading speed. Loading time is usually increased by excessive use of graphic elements and files of other types, leading to incomplete indexing of pages and lower ranking of the website in search results (Ziakis et al., 2019). In order to reduce the loading time, Lenovo should consider such methods as HTML compression, external style sheets, moving JavaScript to external files, and using modern image formats such as JPEG 2000, JPEG XR, and WebP. In addition, the company should avoid using render-blocking resources because they increase the loading time.

Recommendations for Overall Rewarding Customer Experience

The first recommendation is to expand the use of online PR and link building. This advice stems from the described customer journey because this journey began not with Lenovo’s resources, such as the website, a newsletter, or social media, but with the content on third-party websites. Online PR uses a combination of content marketing and social media to engage with customers and other stakeholders (Peter & Dalla Vecchia, 2021). For example, to promote its Legion product line, Lenovo can collaborate with gaming news sites to increase its brand awareness and make it easier for customers to learn about its products.

Furthermore, Lenovo can use mobile marketing to drive sales and provide a positive customer experience. So far, it seems that the company has mobile applications only for providing technical support. Meanwhile, mobile marketing can go beyond this: it can be utilized not only for service provision but also for the customer’s interaction with the market (Peter & Dalla Vecchia, 2021). Mobile marketing can benefit Lenovo in two ways: first, it will improve customer online experience by increasing the number of possibilities to interact with the brand. Second, it will allow for greater personalization of services and product offerings, which will also enhance customer experience.

Another important digital tool that Lenovo should use is influencer marketing. The company has already had success with utilizing this instrument: its #Goodweird campaign became viral around the world. The firm should further capitalize on its experience and brand image and collaborate with technology influencers on YouTube and other social networks to raise brand awareness and boost customer loyalty. In addition, campaigns such as #Goodweird motivate customers to engage in the creation of user-generated content, thus making their online experience with the brand more rewarding.

References

Backaler, J. (2018). Digital influence: Unleash the power of influencer marketing to accelerate your global business. Palgrave Macmillan.

Brand&Deliver. (2019). Legion: Consumer engagement and brand awareness. Web.

Indiani, N. L. P., & Fahik, G. A. (2020). Conversion of online purchase intention into actual purchase: The moderating role of transaction security and convenience. Business: Theory and Practice, 21(1), 18–29.

Pasalic, I. N., & Pavic, I. (2021). Market concentration in the personal computer industry. International Journal of Economic Sciences, 10(1), 84–99.

Peter, M. K., & Dalla Vecchia, M. (2021). The digital marketing toolkit: A literature review for the identification of digital marketing channels and platforms. In R. Dornberger (Ed.), New trends in business information systems and technology (pp. 251–265). Springer.

Roumeliotis, K. I., & Tselikas, N. D. (2021). Search engine optimization techniques: The story of an old-fashioned website. In D. P. Sakas, D. K. Nasiopoulos, & Y. Taratuhina, (Eds.), Business intelligence and modelling: Unified approach with simulation and strategic modelling in entrepreneurship (pp. 47-55). Springer.

SEO Site Checkup. (2022a). Lenovo SEO general checkup score. SEO Site Checkup. Web.

SEO Site Checkup. (2022b). Razer SEO general checkup score. SEO Site Checkup. Web.

Sumedrea, S., Maican, C. I., Chițu, I. B., Nichifor, E., Tecău, A. S., Lixăndroiu, R. C., & Brătucu, G. (2022). Sustainable digital communication in higher education—A checklist for page loading speed optimisation. Sustainability, 14(16), 1–15.

Ziakis, C., Vlachopoulou, M., Kyrkoudis, T., & Karagkiozidou, M. (2019). Important factors for improving Google search rank. Future Internet, 11(2), 1–12.

Zwanenburg, S. P., & Farhoomand, A. (2018). Lenovo: Being on top in a declining industry. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 42(1), 455–480.

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