The Ultimate Guide To Ecommerce Customer Experience
The ecommerce market is on the boom, especially after the coronavirus pandemic broke out. The retail ecommerce sales worldwide surpassed $4.2 Trillion and are projected to grow to $6.54 Trillion by 2022. Besides, by 2040, 95% of all purchases are expected to be via ecommerce.
This makes it critical to improve the shopping experience and make the customer journey as seamless as possible. Every day, hundreds of ecommerce sites are being launched, meaning customers today have more options than ever.
32% of customers stop purchasing from a brand they love after only one bad experience. This makes customer experience management even more important.
Fortunately, you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on anything to provide a seamless ecommerce customer experience. All you need are strategies, which is what we will discuss today!
Read on to understand the benefits of providing a better digital customer experience and how to craft your CX strategies.
Why Does Customer Experience Matters in Ecommerce?
Customer experience sets you apart from your rivals, makes you more competitive, and ultimately drives sales. Consider the following statistics to better understand the importance of consumer experience.
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86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience.
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49% of customers have made impulse purchases after receiving a more personalized experience.
- When combined, these statistics with impact the of good and bad customer experience from HelpScout:
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US companies lose more than $62 billion annually due to poor customer service.
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Americans tell an average of 15 people about a poor service experience against the 11 about a good experience.
But that’s not it. There are even more reasons to ensure the best possible customer journey. If not, you might experience some of the outcomes mentioned below.
Consequences of Compromised Customer Experience
Let’s dive right into the consequences of bad (or compromised customer experience).
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High bounce rate: A bad experience could be anything from a slow loading site to bad navigation. According to Google, as your site load time goes from one second to five seconds, the probability of bounce increases to 90%.
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Poor ecommerce conversion: As mentioned above, bad customer experience increases the bounce rate - meaning more and more people will leave your website without doing anything. As a result, you will experience a poor conversion rate.
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No returning users: No one likes to do business with companies that offer a bad customer experience. Even a single negative experience would prevent customers from returning.
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Loss of Marketing efforts: If customers have a bad experience on your site, all your marketing efforts (and budget) will go into vain. And if customers share their experience on social media or review sites, it will hold more significance than your marketing campaigns.
Hacks to enhance in-store customer experience
Now that you know why customer experience matters and how it affects your ecommerce business, let’s look at 12 tried-and-tested hacks to enhance it.
1- Optimize Your Website for Shoppers
As an ecommerce business, your store is your most important resource. The better it is, the more conversions you’re likely to observe. Therefore, make efforts to optimize it for your shoppers.
For a great user experience, customers must be able to navigate through your site and find the products they are looking for quickly and easily. Before we move to tips to optimize your website for shoppers, here is an example of what a bad ecommerce website looks like:
For an engaging user experience, customers must be able to navigate through your site and find the products they are looking for quickly and easily.
Here are some tips to optimize store navigation for shoppers:
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Categorize products into different groups.
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Limit the number of products you display on the homepage (or at least use scaled images).
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If you offer services in different countries, make sure to use a language translator to make it easier for your customers to understand the context. For e.g., if you are operating a Magento store, Google Language Translator Magento 2 Extension is very helpful.
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Provide customers a way to find the products they’re looking for via a search option.
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Add clear CTAs (buy now, add to cart, etc.).
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Allow shoppers to go to your homepage when they click on your store’s logo.
2- Build Great Product Pages
The next best place to improve customer experience is the product page. The best product pages are a combination of information about the product and high-quality images.
Leverage copywriting techniques to highlight your products’ benefits (instead of focusing solely on the features). Here is how boAt, an earwear audio brand, did that.
Instead of directly mentioning “4 hours of playtime,” they wrote, “last longer to match the fire of your passion.” This makes it even more compelling.
If you are using Magento to operate your ecommerce store, consider adding product inquiry and FAQs extensions to clear customer’s product-related doubts and allow them to ask questions. This will help build trust and minimize returns (as customers will have all the information they need before buying it).
If you sell apparels and accessories that require users to pick a size, consider adding size charts to ensure they get the best one for them. You can use the size chart extension by EvinceMage to display it on the product page.
3- Use Reviews and Testimonials to Build Trust
79% of customers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends or family. Apart from helping build trust and increasing sales, reviews and testimonials enable you to improve your products and customer experience as a whole.
For instance, consider this review.
You can use the pros to highlight why someone should buy this product and the cons to improve it (or contact the manufacturer). You can use Testimonial Magento 2 Extension to capture and display customer reviews on your store. .
4- Make It Easy for Customers to Buy From You
One of the reasons customers buy online is the convenience they get. So, make sure to give them a stress-free, simple uncomplicated buying experience. In fact, ecommerce stores that create an easy buying process are 62% more likely to win a high-quality sale.
Here’s how you can make it easy for customers to buy from you:
- Provide social login options to save customers’ time.
- Add a buy now option that directly takes them to the checkout page.
- Avoid making customers fill out the same information twice (e.g., delivery address and billing address separately even when they are the same).
- Deploy mobile payment methods, including e-wallets.
5- Create a Personalized Experience
71% of consumers get frustrated when their shopping experience is not personalized. 80% of shoppers are more likely to buy from you if you offer personalized experiences.
To create a personalized experience, begin by recommending products inspired by customers’ shopping trends and browsing behavior, just like big tycoons.
You can also display related products, create retargeting ads, and address customers by their name in your emails.
6- Make Your Ecommerce Store Mobile Friendly
Mobile-friendliness has become more important than ever. Mobile commerce share in ecommerce is expected to reach 72.9% by 2021. Besides, Google uses mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor.
Use Google Mobile-Friendly Test to determine whether your website is responsive or not. If not, consider adding a plugin (if you are using an ecommerce platform) or build your site from scratch.
7- Offer Free and Fast Shipping
Customers’ expectations have soared. They want the delivery as soon as possible and that too for free.
79% of US consumers said that free shipping would make them more likely to shop online. 54% of customers under the age of 25 say that same-day shipping is their number one purchase driver.
Make sure to offer free and fast shipping to increase sales, retain customers, and improve their experience.
8- Provide Proactive Customer Support
Customer support is yet another critical aspect of customer experience. And when it comes to ecommerce, customer service is even more important.
What if the customer didn’t like the product? Or facing issues in returning their purchase? They will straight away contact your support team.
If you don’t respond to their queries quickly, you might lose them, not to mention how many people they will share their experience with.
Therefore, build a separate team to handle customer queries and ensure quick issue resolution. And highlight how to contact your team on every page of your online store.
9- Get Active on Social Media
Social media is one of the fastest-growing platforms out there. Get your brand a face by showing your human side on social media. Create content that’s humorous, educational, and creative.
Here is an example of a brand using social media to build a community, enhance its credibility, and ensure customer satisfaction.
You can even encourage your customers to follow you on social media by integrating your social channels into your website. You can do so by using Social Feed Magento 2 Extension.
10- Create Omnichannel Strategies
An omnichannel strategy is something that integrates multiple channels for a better user experience. It allows customers to start a process on one channel and seamlessly finish it in another.
For instance, a customer visits your ecommerce store, finds a shoe they love, but leaves without making a purchase. After some time, the customers come across an exciting offer on social media and make a purchase there.
This means providing multiple channels to make a purchase can help you boost your conversion rate and enhance the customer experience.
11- Engage With Your Customers Post Purchase
Your relationship with your customers doesn’t end after they have made the purchase. Connect with them to know how their experience was and if there’s anything you can improve.
Send emails or SMS with a survey form to understand what could be improved, customers’ expectations from you, and your net promoter score. Use the insights generated to further enhance the customer experience.
12- Educate Your Customers
Last but not least, educate your customers about your offerings, provide helpful and informative content to increase the chances of conversion.
Wrapping Up
Customer experience is one of the critical aspects of ecommerce. Follow the 12 strategies mentioned above to enhance the customer experience. Also, check out the Magento extensions offered by EvinceMage to improve the functionalities of your website.
As new ecommerce stores continue to emerge, providing a great customer experience has become more important than ever. Businesses need to invest in optimizing their website, creating a personalized experience, and providing proactive support.
Ready to start with ecommerce customer experience optimization? Check out the Magento extensions offered by EvinceMage to improve the functionalities of your website and enhance the ecommerce customer experience!