E-commerce is more than just selling your products online. You should think about how you can provide excellent service to your customers.
That’s because customer experience can impact whether you can get referrals and repeat customers. You would not buy again from a store that has lousy service, would you?
Defining E-commerce Customer Experience
Before you start working on your e-commerce customer experience, you first have to understand what that term means.
The e-commerce customer experience deals with every buyer touchpoint. That’s because your customers can discover your business in various ways.
They can find you through a Google search, a friend’s social media post, or a social media ad.
However, customer experience does not end once someone buys your product. It goes beyond that.
Why You Should Care About E-commerce Customer Experience
As mentioned earlier, e-commerce customer experience can impact your referrals and repeat customers. After all, you would not recommend an online store that does not provide excellent service.
As such, you must always think of how you can do it better for your customers. This is regardless of where they are in their purchasing journey.
You may not have their desired product in stock, but excellent customer service can lead to two things:
- Customers would be willing to wait until the product becomes available.
- They will buy from another store but will inquire to you again should they need a refill.
How to Deliver Great E-commerce Customer Experience
Now that you know what an e-commerce customer experience is and why it’s vital for your business, here are nine tips you should keep in mind:
Build compelling product pages
When a customer clicks to get to your e-commerce shop or site, they’re most likely going to a product page first. Therefore, you want to make sure that your product pages are as compelling as possible.
You want to make it aesthetically pleasing, but that’s not all there should be to it.
You have to ensure that they immediately see what they’re looking for upon your product page loading. Otherwise, they might click away.
Make sure that you have clear and high-quality product images as well as detailed product descriptions. Don’t forget to make the Buy Now or other similar call-to-action buttons somewhat visible on your product pages.
Ensure your website’s mobile-responsiveness
Not every customer is going to access your e-commerce website through a desktop or any computer.
Nowadays, everyone can easily access the internet through a variety of devices. Since you know that to be the case, it is your job to ensure that your website is responsive no matter what device a person uses to access your site.
A website that looks good even when viewed through a mobile phone or even a tablet will make mobile users more inclined to stay on the website.
If your website is difficult to navigate simply because they’re not a desktop user, then they’re going to leave your site immediately. That means that you’ve lost an opportunity for a sale which is something you want to avoid.
Create a seamless checkout process
If you want to reduce cart abandonment in your online store, you must look at your checkout process.
You want to make sure that you create a seamless checkout process. That’s because checking is the last step that a customer has to take when buying a product.
Ensure that your shopping cart is visible anywhere so that nobody would have a hard time looking for it. You should also make sure that your payment portals are secure.
It would also be a good idea to have as many payment methods as possible. The last thing you want to do is have a customer ready to pay for their products only to find that you don’t have their preferred payment method.
Adopt an omnichannel approach
When you run an online store, you probably try to reach as many potential customers as possible. That can manifest itself through you investing in different platforms such as social media or blogging.
When you’re reaching customers from other platforms, you want to make sure that you adopt a more omnichannel approach. That means you should try and make it easier for someone to shop your products even if they’re not on your website.
Having more channels where customers can transact with you will provide a great customer experience. It can also boost your sales.
Personalize customer experiences
Personalized customer experiences are more than just putting their name on a retargeting email campaign. It’s also about offering products and discounts that best fit your customer on an individual basis.
Although emails are great for personalizing customer experiences, there are also other means you can do that.
If a customer has an account on your e-commerce website, you can use their browsing history to your advantage. This includes giving them offers and product recommendations that best fit what they were looking for before.
This example is just one of many ways you can create a more personal shopping experience for your customers.
Offer fast customer service
Your business’s success needs to have a responsive and friendly customer service experience. Although you can have your usual customer service email, there are plenty of other means to provide a quick response.
This can be social media messaging, instant messaging apps, and live chat support.
Design an unforgettable unboxing experience
When a package arrives at your doorstep, it always feels like Christmas day. Even if you’re the one who ordered the item in the first place, it still feels like someone gifted you something that you have to open up.
Since you know this experience, your e-commerce business can help elevate that moment even more in many little ways.
One way would be by creating or investing in a custom packaging that will help insert your branding into it. You should make sure that you’re also making it look good.
Some people customize the box, and even the bubble wrap down to the tape used can even be custom if you want to make things a little extra.
Conduct a post-purchase survey
If you want to deliver excellent e-commerce customer experiences, then who better to ask than the customers themselves?
By conducting a post-purchase survey, you can get more insight into how your entire purchasing process works. You can also identify areas of improvement to provide a streamlined solution.
If you want to persuade customers to answer your survey, consider giving rewards like a freebie or a discount for their next purchase.
Build a strong community
Building a solid community around your e-commerce business is one of the most important ways to retain loyalty with the people who support your business.
With a strong community behind your brand, you can have brand advocates. These are not just loyal customers but also people who support your cause.
There are two ways you can build a strong brand community:
- Social Media
Over to You
Solidifying your e-commerce customer experience can help elevate your brand. This means an increase in sales and a swarm of loyal customers who support your causes.
With the help of the nine e-commerce tips listed above, you should now be able to start building an excellent foundation for a positive e-commerce customer experience.