For any eCommerce business, simply delivering a brilliant product is not sufficient to survive, and certainly not enough to prosper. The products you market have a tremendous influence on determining the future success of your business. However, nowadays, it is significantly of greater importance to deliver a great online customer experience to your eCommerce shoppers. This article will be covering everything you need to know about crafting an exceptional eCommerce customer experience, to enhance retention, loyalty, and eventually lifelong value for your customers.
Table of Contents
Why develop a customer experience strategy?
Beginners’ tips for optimizing the customer experience
4 Proven ways to optimize customer experience
Apply what you have learned
Why develop a customer experience strategy?
Ecommerce customer experience is a term that describes the totality of all engagements, touchpoints, feelings, and thoughts that arise or are shared between the shopper and your business brand — as perceived from the customer’s standpoint.
To jump-start a great customer experience strategy, it is mostly advised to address the customer journeys which will help you determine the needs as well as desires of a customer. As such, having a robust customer-centric strategy is required for the success of your approach to optimizing the customer experience.
Beginners’ tips for optimizing the customer experience
The generation of sales online can be huge for a business that did not have much of a digital presence. Establishing an eCommerce site can be daunting. That is why here are the best eCommerce pieces of advice for a business just starting out.
1 Understand your customers
Getting a grip on your customer experience first requires you to understand who your customers are and what motivates them. For this, it is important to first identify the persona of your customers based on their locations, demographics, and interests.
2 Be available at their time
One of the biggest things you need to do to improve your customer experience is to be there for them whenever they need your help and support. The ideal goal would be to be connected and present for them 24/7.
3 Provide a personalized experience
Delivering a personalized experience involves thoroughly exploring each customer’s journey so that you can convey the right message to them when they want it and through the channel they prefer. Eventually, it will have a strong financial impact on your business revenue: the better personalized the service you provide, the greater the chance of customer conversion.
4 Reward loyal customers
When it comes to enhancing customer experience, surprising your customers with rewards is one of the greatest ways to achieve this. Start considering rewarding your most loyal customers and recognizing their engagement, and you will ultimately reap the benefits.
5 Use analytics
Measurement is essential for a successful business. Analytics helps you determine where your business stands and how you can improve your performance. They enable you to remain updated on your customer satisfaction level, and the score of both your customer effort and net promoter.
4 Proven ways to optimize customer experience
Increasingly, businesses have begun to appreciate the enormous power of customer experience when it comes to boosting loyalty, lowering operational costs, and delivering sustainable long-term growth. Yet how exactly do you improve your customer experience? Let’s check out how to optimize the customer experience.
1 How to use SEO best practices to rank on SERP
A higher ranking in the SERPs is of great importance for eCommerce companies, as it brings organic traffic to your website. These organic visitors, in turn, have a higher probability of converting into customers and prospects.
In addition, ranking higher than your competitors is something you want to achieve, as it increases the likelihood that customers will find your eCommerce website and complete a purchase from your store. But how can you rank higher in the SERP?
Everyone knows the importance of keywords. You know the need for long-tail keywords, but are you targeting the right ones? To find the right keywords, look for ones that have a lot of monthly searches, are profitable, and have low competition. You do not have to worry about how to meet all of these criteria. Fortunately, there are free and paid online tools that will help you do that:
Google’s search engine: Free subscription plan
SEMRush: Paid subscription (7 days free trial)
Ahrefs: Free keyword generator plan
Another great way to use SEO to rank in the SERP is to optimize your product pages. This can be done by presenting the features and benefits of your product in a visually appealing and clear way. Also, be sure to create a strong call to action (CTA) and include testimonials.
Draft a meta title and meta description and make sure to include your keywords. According to Moz, the meta description should be no longer than 160 characters, and your meta title should not exceed 65 characters.
2 How to create your digital content (AIDA model)
The AIDA model describes, among other things, the four stages a buyer goes through before making a purchase decision. These steps are attention, interest, desire, and action (AIDA). In these four stages, your content should ideally draw attention to your business or brand, spark interest in your product or service, create a desire to purchase it, and inspire action to experience or buy it.
Attract attention
If your content grabs attention and triggers strong engagement, your target audience will be interested in what your business has to offer. The consumer is now thinking, “What is this product?”
To reach this point, you must first put your content in front of them. This includes increased brand awareness and effective communication.
Arouse interest
To reach this step, you need to have captivating and engaging content. The goal of this step is to maintain the attention that was aroused in the first step. You need them to want to know more about your brand and the benefits of your products. The goal of this step is to make them realize that they “like” the product.
Create desire
People do business with someone they know, like, and trust. The goal of this step is to turn the “want” aroused in the previous step into a “desire.”
This is achieved by increasing the customer’s “trust” in you. To achieve this, keep delivering content to them. Make sure they subscribe to your blog and follow you on social media. The more interaction the lead has with your brand, the more trust they will have in you and the more likely they are to ultimately buy your products.
Promote action
After you have generated enough interest in your products, you need to get your potential customers to take action. The goal is to get them to admit that they get it and want to buy it! Then you need to get them to respond with highly effective calls to action.
3 How to get positive customer reviews
Ask for reviews
Asking customers to leave a testimonial can be an important starting point, especially for small business owners. This can be done throughout the sales cycle.
Maintain a presence on review platforms
A lack of online presence can prevent customers from leaving reviews for you. That is why it is important to maintain active accounts on review platforms like Google, Facebook, Google, and others.
4 How to create online communities to connect with customers
An online community is an association of Internet users who form a group based on common interests. Although an online community is usually initiated on social media platforms (e.g., a Facebook group), it can also be created and thrive in the discussion area of a blog post, website, etc. You can create online communities by accepting, to varying degrees, what everyone in your community has to offer. Some like to contribute their ideas and participate in the discussion, while others take those ideas and implement them.
Apply what you have learned
Building an effective online experience requires a deep understanding of customer needs, preferences, and expectations. It is a dynamic process that requires an organization-wide commitment to improving customer experience. Implementing the above-discussed tips and ways to optimize digital customer experience will help you not only generate sales from your online store but also achieve customer loyalty and retention, which will eventually influence your business growth.
