Customer Experience

Designing Your Customer Experience Strategy

Companies that excel at customer experience grow revenues up to 8% above others in their industries. With the rising focus on customer satisfaction, consumers are expecting a top-notch experience from the get-go. By designing a solid customer experience strategy, you aren't just putting yourself ahead of the competition and increasing revenue. You are reducing marketing expenses by turning consumers into your brand ambassadors.

Where do you start? Let's take a closer look.

1. Capitalize on Personalization

About 80% of shoppers are more likely to make a purchase when a brand offers a personalized experience. Cold, impersonal websites are likely to lose visitors to those that exercise a personal approach.

Smart ways to implement personalization include:

  • Offering a selection of products based on past customer experience.
  • Creating a personal "Hello" page.
  • Giving a customer an opportunity to design a wish list.
  • Offering a variety of personalized settings.
  • Providing a list of recently viewed items and recommendations based on them.
  • Sending personalized emails and offers on birthdays and other special occasions.
  • Using geo-location targeting to redirect visitors to a brick-and-mortar store (if any).
  • Personalizing search results based on previous behavior.
  • Suggesting complementary products.

Pro tip: More than 50% of marketers have trouble implementing a worthwhile personalized experience. By mastering personalization, you can take a significant leap ahead of the competition.

2. Cross-Sell Products

You can cross-sell products while a customer is shopping on your website or after they complete the purchase. By analyzing the information you have about your buyers and their previous behavior, you can make valuable suggestions that both improve customer experience and generate revenue.

Since the majority of consumers are pressed for time, make it easier on them by doing the work for them.. Don't let them spend extra minutes searching for the soil mix after putting a flower pot in the cart. Suggest suitable options immediately for an exceptional customer experience.

3. Work with Abandoned Shopping Carts

The average cart abandonment rate is over 77%. Reasons vary from unexpected shipping fees to technical difficulties. To improve customer experience, you need to work on eliminating cart abandonment causes and bringing shoppers back smoothly.

  • Be clear about shipping & handling fees BEFORE the customer reaches the cart.
  • Work on your website design to battle any technical issues.
  • Add as many payment options as possible (clients often leave when they don't see their favorite payment option).
  • Reduce the checkout process to a couple of clicks.
  • Offer easily accessible support options on the cart page.
  • Design high-quality cart abandonment emails.
  • Employ paid search re-targeting tactics.

Overall, the cart experience should be quick and transparent. Consumers are more likely to come back to an e-commerce website if the checkout process is fast and painless.

4. Explore M-Commerce Possibilities

By the end of 2020, m-commerce can reach 45% of the total U.S. e-commerce market. Millions of consumers are actively using mobile devices to do their shopping. The mobile shopping experience is an integral part of the customer experience.

Apps

Consider exploring the possibility of designing an app. Apps can offer a variety of personalization options while giving you endless opportunities for retention. They create a direct channel to a client at any time, thus boosting your marketing capabilities.

Mobile Version

When adapting your website for smartphone users, you have several options:

  • Adaptive — creating two different websites (one for desktop and one for mobile) and rerouting the user to a suitable version depending on which device they are using.
  • Mobile-first — during the design stage, the website is aimed at looking good on mobile devices first.

The choice of the mobile option depends on your budget and the current state of your website.

5. Work on the Customer Service Options

When a customer has a question, you should do your best to answer it immediately. It's usually much easier to leave the website than to wait for a reply from customer support.

High-quality personalized customer service can put your company ahead of the competition and help outdo even the largest e-commerce websites like Amazon.

  • Comprehensive FAQ section — besides creating sufficient content to be helpful to consumers, make sure the section is super-easy to navigate.
  • Live chat — live chats can improve customer experience tremendously. It's a simple way to get an immediate response. By taking advantage of chatbots, you can minimize the pressure on your customer support staff while keeping customers happy. Today, live chat is the preferred method of customer service.

Additionally, you should have full contact information readily available in case the shopper decides to call or send an email.

6. Encourage Reviews

Reviews play a huge role in improving the customer experience. More than 80% of consumers read online reviews before buying something. When these people can't find reviews, they are likely to move on to another website or store.

By encouraging your past customers to leave reviews, you aren't just improving your retention efforts. You are attracting new shoppers.

  • Ask for a review right after a customer completes a purchase (if they don't leave one immediately, send a reminder email in 24 to 48 hours).
  • Offer incentives for leaving a review.
  • Make it easy to leave a review across different platforms (social media, Google).

Make sure to reply to all reviews whether they are good or bad. Your quick reaction to feedback shows that you care for your customers' opinions. Invest in customer feedback analysis to improve your conversion and retention efforts.

7. Provide High-Quality Content

The 21st-century consumer is constantly searching for information. A lack of educatory materials, even if it's just a weekly blog post, can make your e-commerce website appear bare.

Besides being a robust marketing tool, content can also improve buyer experience. It doesn't have to be lengthy text. Visual content like images and videos of products can make the shopping process more fulfilling. You can also invest in extensive professional reviews of each product.

Implementing Your Customer Experience Strategy

Improving customer experience is on the agenda of all business owners. It plays a major role in customer conversion and retention.

Begin implementing the customer experience strategy the moment you start designing your website. You can adjust to the new trends as they appear.