Businesses are under pressure to deliver a seamless customer experience (CX) that reflects the ongoing changes in customer habits. The top priority for online retailers worldwide is to improve the e-commerce customer experience. Customer experience leaders are generating significant revenue growth by providing customers with memorable experiences and meeting their expectations. According to Zippia's study, improving customers' interactions with the brand increases profits, as companies that focus on customer experience are 60% more profitable, and have an 80% increase in revenue.
So, how can businesses then improve their e-commerce customer experience? The first step for any e-commerce brand looking to increase sales should be to win over customers with an outstanding customer experience strategy. Therefore, customer experience is strongly linked to omnichannel, or the multichannel approach to marketing, sales, and service to customers regardless of how, where, or when the customer is contacted or contacts the brand itself.
With the help of this omnichannel strategy, a customer is able to have a completely seamless and consistent customer experience throughout all the brand-related stages of his customer journey and customer lifecycle. You can guarantee a seamless experience regardless of the channel or the situation by putting the customer at the center of your strategy.
Read on, and we will go over everything you need to know about the e-commerce customer experience that will help you develop a seamless e-commerce customer experience strategy.
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The term "e-commerce customer experience" describes each interaction a customer has with your online store. The process begins at the awareness stage, when a customer first learns about your website, and moves on to the purchase and advocacy stages.
When people click on your website, they should have the easiest possible time using the website's navigation, product search, customer service, payment, etc. It's crucial to provide the best e-commerce customer experience because it benefits businesses. If not, they won't think twice before switching to a competitor. In fact, according to a Forbes report, 96% of customers would leave your company if you deliver a bad customer experience.
That's why improving customer experience encourages customers to have a positive impression of your brand. In turn motivates them to use it again, make another purchase, and tell their friends, family, and coworkers about it.
For many people, customer experience is the most important factor when choosing a product or service. Customers today want more than just a website, app, or e-commerce that functions. They want it to function seamlessly, save them time, and perhaps even recognize their interests or preferences without them even being aware of it.
Not only that but for many brands, focusing on customer experience is the best way to stay one step ahead of the competition. The final customer and his/her experience with the brand are increasingly at the center of leading brands' ongoing efforts to develop an omnichannel experience.
Customer loyalty and satisfaction, conversion rates, average order value, and word-of-mouth advertising are all increased by good customer experience.
Through the 12 ways to improve the e-commerce customer experience in this blog, we'll slowly show the lengthy response.
A crucial component of the e-commerce customer experience is personalization. Your CX strategy must emphasize personalizing a customer experience by showing relevant products and user-generated content (UGC). Web pages, emails, apps, and social media platforms all feature customer personalization. Each customer will have a distinctive and dynamic shopping experience if you use their browsing data to design a personalized experience for them.
Personalization is a significant e-commerce customer experience trend. It enables retailers to offer that personalized touch that was previously only possible during in-store interactions. Personalization also raises impulse purchases and average spending, much like in-store shopping.
You need clear, concise product images. Use high-quality pictures and videos all over your shop to attract customers. The aesthetic elements of your website showcase the products you're selling. Make product images bigger so that customers can zoom in to see the details.
Make sure that images only load when users require them to. The performance of your website can suffer and users may have a negative experience if many high-resolution images and brief video clips are loaded at the beginning.
According to the Insider Intelligence report, mobile e-commerce share of total retail will resume growing next year, reaching 8.7% by 2026, based on June 2022. A user-friendly site architecture is essential for ensuring that your visitors can easily navigate your site. This involves strategically categorizing your product catalog and associated product pages, as well as making other parts of your site equally accessible. Make sure your forms are autofill-enabled on Android and Chrome, so the user has to type less.
Further, If your site takes too long to load on a mobile device, many visitors will abandon it in favor of your competitors. To improve page speed, you may need to exclude some fields or buttons.
Additionally, ensure that all of your pages, product images, and descriptions are optimized to fit easily on a smartphone screen. In the end, the optimization of your e-commerce site for mobile can result in a significant increase in sales.
An effective CX strategy includes protecting your customers from security risks. Your customers should feel confident that your website is safe and that their financial transactions are handled securely.
Simple steps you can take to strengthen your e-commerce store's security include: the online store is encrypted, password security procedures, making use of a credible card processor, and installing security plug-ins.
Customers can use two-factor authentication to protect their data when using your store. Customers will trust your brand more if you give them a secure environment in which to shop.
Regarding privacy politics and subscription terms, you should exercise extra caution. For users, knowing that their phone numbers, email addresses, and other sensitive information will be secure is crucial. This includes defending them against spam and not disclosing their personal data to other businesses.
You cannot afford to ignore the checkout process when trying to improve customer experience on an e-commerce website. Creating a simple checkout process may reduce the number of abandoned carts. It should be simple, the shopping cart should be visible from every page, and payments should be secure.
Moreover, always presents various types of checkout options, including PayPal. This method will ensure that your customer does not proceed to checkout only to discover that you do not accept their preferred payment method. If you discover that you have a high abandoned cart rate, you can quickly deploy a feedback intercept on your website to determine the source of the problem.
Chatbots, for example, are e-commerce automation tools that can improve your customer journey by reducing wait times. Many chatbots and artificial intelligence (AI) systems now have conversational intelligence, allowing customers to ask simple questions. Customers will be able to serve themselves, minimizing waiting times. Chatbots can now answer many frequently asked customer questions. According to Userlike statistics, 68% of customers like chatbots because they provide quick answers.
Implementing chatbots enables retailers to provide 24/7 customer support without requiring service agents to work around the clock. Customers wait less time, and retailers save money. Live omnichannel platform provides the kind of chatbot that would be ideal for your business's needs. A bot that speaks your language, understands dialects and does street talk.
E-commerce customers interact with a brand via a variety of channels. It is critical to maintain consistency. Throughout their purchasing journey, customers will interact with various customer journey touchpoints. Their journey from one point to the next should be smooth and stress-free.
If you know your customers are on social media or are likely to be, engaging with them on those platforms is a great way to begin a way to build customer loyalty and attract repeat business.
Use social media to create meaningful and emotional connections with your customers in order to build a loyal following.
Related article: Social media customer support: 12 tips to do it right
To draw in and expand your audience, you can use the content as a customer acquisition tool. Also, it can become a go-to place for them to get reliable information on a particular subject. Customers are more likely to trust your brand and return to your website if you produce content that they want to read and that benefits their lives. In order for content to be clearly integrated into the site, it must be published frequently and consistently.
You can produce, use, and distribute content in a variety of ways to assist online shoppers in finding solutions to their issues. However, you can produce blog posts, product walkthroughs, case studies, infographics, etc. based on your target audience.
Make sure your content is SEO-optimized so that the audience you want to reach can find it quickly.
One of the features that customers value the most about e-commerce stores is fast and free shipping. According to Invesp statistics, 93% of online customers are encouraged to buy more products if free shipping options are available.
While having to cover shipping costs themselves may result in a loss of sales for retailers, these expenses are frequently offset by higher conversion rates, higher order values, and repeat customers.
Reviews are a great way to get feedback from customers, establish credibility, and turn former customers into resources for new customers. When customers need advice, these offer a genuine way to assist them. Prospective customers can research a product's quality, suitability for their needs, and reviews from previous customers to see if they were satisfied.
Overall reviews for your e-commerce store will increase customers' trust in your brand and services, even though, product reviews are likely to convert customers who are ready to buy. On your website, offer a review section where customers can leave feedback and give their purchases a rating.
When running a retail business, you will hear a lot from your customers, but the secret to long-term success is to listen to them. You can start to improve your customer experience and ease the burden on your customer support teams in the future. So, how will that be accomplished? By paying attention to the real issue that the customer is experiencing when they contact your customer service. You can use strategies like brand monitoring and social listening to find out what people in your target market are saying about your brand.
When a customer interacts with an employee of your team, conduct surveys with them or ask for feedback. They might not always respond, but when they do, you can use that information to optimize for greater customer loyalty, sales, and revenue. It's crucial to remember that conducting customer surveys can help customers feel better about your company. Live platform offers surveys with fully automatized scripts, which will help you get customer feedback from any channel you prefer.
Finally, in order to improve something, you must first measure it in order to identify its weak points. You can quickly determine how customers feel about your products and services by using customer satisfaction surveys (CSAT).
Additionally, the Net Promoter Score (NPS) will let you know how likely it is that your customers will recommend your company to others.
You will always fall into the "same products" trap when shopping online. Too many businesses are providing nearly identical products and services. How do you differentiate yourself in such a sea of similarity?
The e-commerce customer experience can become a differentiator with a single-minded focus. It increases customer loyalty and attracts new customers. You can set yourself apart from the competition and raise customers' general satisfaction by putting a strong emphasis on delivering a positive customer experience.
Use the above-mentioned 12 ways to improve the e-commerce customer experience, so you will be able to delight your online customers. In return, your customers will become more loyal to your brand and share their experiences with other people.
Making changes in response to customer feedback will help you build stronger relationships with those customers and demonstrate to your community that you value their opinions.
Don't hesitate to get in touch with us today if you want to learn more about how the Live product family can help you support and improve your customer experience strategy.
Learn more about how the Live product family can help you support and improve your customer experience strategy.
