“The customer experience is the next competitive battleground.” – Jerry Gregoire
E-commerce businesses have been growing quite rapidly in the last decade and it is all thanks to its simplicity and convenience. Nowadays, lots of people prefer online shopping due to it being more convenient as it offers simplicity and is sometimes a cheaper option.
All online e-commerce businesses earn money through purchases or advertisements on their website and it is in their best interest to attract as many visitors as possible and convince them into purchasing a product or service from them. Often at times, it can be difficult to attract new customers, and at the same time, provide a good customer experience. Therefore, firstly, it is important to establish a proper customer experience before going all-in with your sales pitch.
Innovation is key to enhance customer experience. You want them engaged with your content, which assures the best user experience possible.
How to improve customer experience
There are many ways to attract as many customers as possible, but you don’t need to break a sweat as I’ll show you a couple of useful tips that will improve your customer experience, sales, and even the site’s design.
Tip 1 – Ensure Easy and Secure Payments
The whole process starts when a customer visits your site and lasts until they decide to checkout and complete the purchase. It is highly important to make sure that every step is flawless. I shouldn’t have to tell you how serious customers are when it comes to online transactions and their reliability.
People tend to trust big brands such as PayPal and/or Stripe to send/withdraw their payments quickly, securely, and almost effortlessly. For sellers (you), it is important to have various payment methods available such as PayPal, Stripe, Bitcoin, Credit Card Payment, Cash on Delivery, Bank Transfer, and so on. You need to make sure that payments are safe and secure.
Consider getting security certificates and/or invest in a payment gateway with multilayered security features that encrypt sensitive data and ensure its safety.
Tip 2 – Offer a Simple Checkout Process
You wouldn’t believe how many times people abandon or cancel the purchase because of the overcomplicated checkout process. If it takes a lot of time for a person to figure out how to complete a purchase on your site, they’ll probably just bounce to another source and get it there.
Time is money and you should know that people don’t like waiting or going through multiple steps just to do something as simple as a purchase, which is why you need to simplify the process. The best type of checkout process is quick and easy.
Important Precautions:
Allow the user to see their shopping cart at all times, so they can easily complete the order.
If you have any special offers or coupons, make sure to include them and keep them visible during the checkout. Also, show the value of the cart and the shipping charges. Shipping is an important aspect when it comes to selling goods. It is a good idea to offer free shipping (if you’re in such a position) as it incentivizes people to purchase something without much hesitation because they believe they’re getting something, in this case, the shipping, for free. Nobody likes receiving faulty goods, so it is crucial that the goods are received in their original condition.
Tip 3 – Live Chat & Support
Even though you’ve probably already set up an email account for inquiries, it can come in handy to enable live chat on your site to allow your customers to contact you and ask questions related to your products/services.
You can reply much faster and make your customers feel like they are in the center of your attention every time.
Lots of customers expect to find a live chat on your site, which makes it more likely for them to return to your site and do business.
You should prioritize customer support and since there are numerous eCommerce platforms to choose from such as Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, Shopify, and WooCommerce which invest a lot into customer support, so should you.
Honorable Mentions:
- LiveChat
- Intercom
- Zendesk
How to Provide Premium Customer Support?
Consider using an inbox solution that integrates with your eCommerce platform.
Create an FAQ and/or offer your customers a knowledge base where they can find solutions to their problems throughout the eCommerce customer journey.
Focus on reaching out to all your customers by providing online shopping customer service through channels that they prefer. You can use your social media accounts as customer service channels and reach even more customers. Social media is a powerful tool and can be used to market your products/services even further. Try out process automation such as Facebook or Instagram bots that make it easy to communicate without your presence.
Tip 4 – Website Design Improves Conversion Rates
It is no secret that a well-designed site/page will attract more eyes and possibly has a higher chance of compelling a person to buy something.
That’s why it is important to have a simple, yet effective design allowing customers to easily navigate through your site and pages.
Make Navigation Quick & Easy:
- Place the search bar somewhere noticeable on your homepage.
- Place the main navigation bar at the top of the page and make it stand out.
- Include subcategories and allow visitors to access them by using the hover method.
- Ensure that navigation is fully responsive on all devices.
Compress Images & Lower Load-times
It is best to upload as many images as possible when selling goods/services online so that the potential customer can see what the product is about and how it looks.
Since most images nowadays are quite large, you can quickly fill up your site’s storage and even worse, introduce slow load-times due to bandwidth restrictions.
Simply, compress images which sacrifices a bit of quality to lower the file size immensely.
Use Different Colors and Make Elements Stand Out
Everyone has different tastes and there is no secret formula on which exact set of colors to use but you can use contrasting colors to make your elements stand out. Simply try out different colors and see what works best for your site. If the design is your biggest concern, check out this article on How Website Design And Content Strategy Increase E-Commerce Conversion Rates.
Tip 5 – Speed up WordPress Development & Maintenance
If you’ve done some maintenance or web development in the past, you’ll know that from time to time you can reach a few obstacles along the way.
If you’re doing lots of testing and debugging on your WordPress site, you can quickly reset its database to the default installation settings with the help of a WordPress plugin.
It has multiple fail-safe mechanisms that protect your data and allow you to quickly test and debug different versions of your site and its elements. WP Reset is the best choice for this task and is free to use as well. If you’re interested in the plugin and want to find out more about it, this is an in-depth guide on How To Reset Your WordPress Site.
The less time you spend manually modifying, removing, and managing your site’s elements the more time you can invest elsewhere. Save time and effort by letting this plugin speed up the whole process.
Conclusion
If you’re trying to make as much money as possible, you need to attract lots of customers and you can do that by ensuring a flawless customer experience on your e-commerce website.
The happier and more satisfied your customers are, the more likely they are to purchase goods/services.
Good customer experience goes a long way and can even compel customers to return and buy more products/services. Use these tips to improve your online business and increase sales with a little effort on your side. This also improves your efforts for building better online shopping customer service for your customers.
No Comments
Leave a comment Cancel