How to create an amazing Customer Experience for your eCommerce store?
Reading Time: 4 minutesCompetition in the world of e-commerce is fierce. There are over 20 million e-commerce websites and over 3.4 billion e-commerce users worldwide. That is why simply having good products does not make the cut anymore. For any business to achieve success, it must focus on providing great value to the customer.
In other words, to survive in the e-commerce space, you can’t just be content with delivering the products they need and want. In an effort to improve sales and traffic on their online stores, businesses today must be actively involved in improving customer experience.
Why is Customer Experience Important?
The reality is we are living in times where the customer is exposed to an advanced level of digital marketing technology. In consequence, their expectations for almost all available experiences are high. The good thing is we have the tools and resources to tailor a personalized experience where they can purchase a product online with the utmost confidence without any hassles.
Furthermore, Customer Experience (CX) can set up businesses and brands to be more competitive and customer-centric which ultimately will help grow the business and drive sales.
Customer experience can set companies up to be more competitive and more customer-focused, ultimately driving sales and business growth. In a research by the State of Commerce experience, it was found that about 50% of consumers would pay more to get a better customer experience. The research also suggested that customers don’t purchase from the same store again if they previously had a poor experience with them. Precisely why today, customer experience is considered to be one of the most important aspects when optimizing any website.
5 Proven Ways to Improve Customer Experience
Here are some practical ways that you can implement on your e-commerce store to drive in more sales and improve customer experience:
Rich Content
A consumer code report suggested that about 87% of users rate content on product pages as extremely essential in helping them decide whether to purchase the product or not. Good content can help improve the customer experience drastically.
A study by Forrester found that only 32% of businesses today provide detailed, rich product information. There is so much to improve.
Content is essentially one of the most influential tools when it comes to selling on e-commerce. That is why the content copy on your website must be compelling. It should be detailed and provide all the information that a customer needs. With that, it should also create a sense of urgency so that the customer purchases the product there and then.
To get things into perspective, content should do much more than simply answer the questions correctly. It should connect with the customer and inspire them. For that purpose, the content needs to be rich, informative, and precise.
Personalization
Viral marketing is old news. Today, people expect much more than that. They crave a curated personal experience that helps them get what they are looking for.
Did you know about 91% of users are more probable to purchase from businesses who remember them and give them the offers according to their preferences than those who do not?
To improve customer experience and drive sales, an e-commerce business needs to provide on-site assistance to its consumers. For instance, when a customer visits your online store they should be shown relevant offers and products.
Here is how you can personalize your content:
- Analyze and understand your customer.
- Establish buyer persona.
- Adjust your message and offers according to the user’s behavior.
- Save a user’s progress for future reference.
Essentially, you can do that by collecting information about their size, age, budget, gender, style, etc. This helps them find the product of their choice with minimum hassle thus improving the customer experience.
Seamless Checkout Process
An easy and hassle-free checkout process can considerably reduce the number of abandoned carts on your eCommerce store. For any online business to survive, the shopping cart should be visible from all the pages and have secure payment methods.
This way the customer does not have to navigate through another page to purchase a product. Don’t give your customer any time to have any doubt about their purchase. Advertise which payment methods you accept. This way the customer won’t go to the payment page only to realize that you do not accept their preferred payment method.
Keep on improving constantly. If your online store has a high abandoned cart rate, make your customers fill a feedback form and make the changes on your store accordingly.
Mobile Optimization
Customers’ patience for a cumbersome online store on a mobile device is wailing. They expect lightning speed whether they are using a laptop, PC, or smartphone. Not only do you need to give them immediate gratification by improving the speed of your mobile site or app but also make the mobile-optimized site or app look organized, simple, and aesthetically pleasing.
Here’s an interesting fact for you – It is expected that this year mobile e-commerce will comprise more than half of the total e-commerce sales. So, mobile optimization is something you cannot afford to overlook.
AI is the Way Forward
Use Artificial Intelligence software like chatbots and virtual agents to boost customer satisfaction. In recent times, these have become very popular as it helps businesses manage user engagement effectively.
There are several benefits of integrating this software into your digital marketing strategy. One of the most prominent ones is that it is available 24*7 and helps customers without any hassles and distractions. In the end, it is about serving your customer and making them feel happy. This will definitely improve your customer experience.
In Conclusion
An e-commerce store is essentially built around two objectives – sell products and serve people. Now more than ever, businesses have started focusing on serving people. An excellent customer experience or service essentially means meeting and exceeding your user’s expectations and needs. Customer experience has become a big differentiator. Consequently, if you want your brand to become a digital-first business, providing a great customer experience should be on the top of your priority list.
