You’ve spent countless hours designing the perfect e-commerce site, making sure every button is in the right place and that every image has just the right caption. But once your customers hit “checkout,” it’s game over, right? Not exactly. Because that is where e-commerce customer experience comes in.

Keeping them on your site to complete their purchase isn’t just about signing up for your newsletter or liking your page on Facebook. It’s about nailing down the crucial elements of customer experience (CX), so you can turn even more browsers into buyers. 

This blog will look at what an e-commerce customer experience is, what goal we need to achieve, and how you can build a great customer experience for your online store.

Well then. Let’s get started.

What is E-commerce Customer Experience?

Starting off with the boring but important part. What e-commerce customer experience basically is? 

E-commerce customer experience is the whole process that a customer goes through when they’re interacting with your brand and product.

This includes everything from how they find your store to their first purchase experience, all the way up to how you deal with them when they need to return something or ask for help.

However, these days, e-commerce means much more than just shopping online. E-commerce might include mobile commerce or social commerce—any kind of digital purchase or interaction with a company that takes place on a device connected to the internet. 

Therefore, you have to make sure your customers’ experience is consistent and smooth across all the touchpoints.

What is the goal of an e-commerce customer experience?

There are many ways to engage an audience on your e-commerce site. You can use videos, infographics, and blog posts. But the goal of all these tools is to make the customer experience better.

If you think about it, there are two main facets of e-commerce: the business side and the customer side. The business side is what we’re focusing on here, making sure that you can scale your business by offering unique and personalized experiences for every person who visits your website.

Hence, the goal of an e-commerce customer experience is to positively impact sales while creating a memorable touchpoint for customers. In order to achieve this, companies must focus on enhancing their customer’s shopping experience through personalized suggestions and better search options.

How to build a great customer experience for your online store?

A great e-commerce customer experience is really important for not just customers, but also for your online store. Here are few ways through which you can build a great customer experience for your online store.

Give your customers a place to talk about you and start a conversation with them.

Providing a platform for your customers to talk about their experience with your company is becoming more and more critical. Social proof is one of the most powerful tools in marketing, and customer reviews are an easy way to build up that proof.

There are several ways to collect customer reviews, but there’s one secret that most people don’t know about. That secret will give you the best results for collecting authentic reviews from happy customers.

There are a few ways to encourage your customers to talk about you. You can offer them a reward or incentive for doing so, or you can try to make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

For example: Add a call-to-action on any pages that list your company’s customer service number and hours of operation. Or, on the checkout page, ask them if they would like to become an affiliate for free by sharing their purchase with friends.

You can also start by asking your followers questions in the form of polls or open-ended questions, like “What was the best thing that happened to you this week?” or “What was the worst thing that happened to you this week?” You can also question them about what they want from your business! Once responses come back, you will also start having a better idea of their needs and wants.

By giving your customers a place to talk about you, they will feel more valued and cared, and ultimately experience a smooth e-commerce customer experience.

Create a loyalty program for repeat business

Making repeat customers is one of the main goals of e-commerce. Loyalty programs are a great way to reward your customers for their business, but they can be tricky to get right.

There are different loyalty programs, and some are better suited to building brand ambassadors than others.

Loyalty programs are a popular strategy for e-commerce stores to use. They are also one of the most effective ways to improve customer experience. A loyalty program is effectively an incentive for customers to come back because it gives them rewards that they can redeem later on.

For example, you can offer your customers member-only discounts, promotions, and rewards. You can also give them reward points and present their special offers in exchange for reward points.

Without question, Scotiabank and Cineplex’s SCENE points program is one of the greatest out there for movie buffs. Members receive access to a selection of exclusive incentives by earning points for regular transactions made with debit and credit cards. They can use their points to get free movies, as well as discounts at certain sporting events and restaurants.

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Scotiabank and Cineplex’s SCENE points program

Smoothen up your customer’s experience with Omnichannel retailing

With the fast growth of e-commerce giants like Amazon and Flipkart, traditional retailers must stay ahead in the game. E-commerce has completely changed the way retailers do business. From increasing their reach to new customers while eliminating the costs of brick-and-mortar stores. However, brands that are not able to offer omnichannel customer experience are losing out on sales.

The need for omnichannel retailing is more significant than ever before today. The consumer has become more informed, tech-savvy, and independent when it comes to shopping. A study shows that 20% of online shoppers will abandon purchasing if they do not receive an omnichannel experience. 

However, for a smooth e-commerce experience for your customer, you might need a product information management tool that makes omnichannel retailing for you a lot easier. It allows you to manage all the product information at one centralized location, from where you can syndicate your products across multiple platforms.

Choosing a PIM, such as Apimio, could be a very helpful option at this point as it not only manage and syndicate your products but also optimize your image data quality for various e-commerce platforms, such as Amazon, Shopify, Magneto, etc. 

Provide a personalized customer experience

Personalization is the new buzzword in marketing, and for a good reason. According to McKinsey & Company’s report, personalization can increase conversion rates by up to 93%.

However, even though most businesses are aware of its value, few companies actually implement it effectively. That’s because most companies don’t know how to make the transition from mass marketing to personalization.

However, today’s consumers expect a personalized customer experience. A 2015 study by Walker Sands found that 75% of Millennials want shopping experiences tailored to their needs and interests and that 75% of all consumers said they would be willing to pay more for personalized offers.

Personalized marketing has been used by e-commerce retailers for quite some time now. Some businesses use simple one-time discounts or coupons, while others create funnels around specific products or services based on a user’s personal preferences. This type of personalization is usually done using a combination of data gathered from an online form or a checkout page.

Pre-purchase Experience

Lastly, pre-purchase e-commerce customer experience is as important as post-purchase e-commerce experience. 

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Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels

The internet is the biggest research tool ever made available to consumers. When online shoppers are looking for something to buy, they will usually spend around an hour searching for information about that product or service before purchasing.

However, this doesn’t mean you have just one shot at converting your potential customer into a paying customer. In fact, you can increase your chance of convincing them to purchase from you by providing as much information as possible throughout the entire process. 

The more information and tutorials about your product or service available on your website, the easier it will be for customers to purchase. And hence, it will improve their overall experience of your eCommerce store. 

For example, you can ask your customers about their reviews. Positive customer reviews and recommendations are an effective form of marketing that can help you recruit, convert, and keep the right customers.

You can also pre-purchase support to your potential customers, where you need to interact with them at least 5-12 times before they make the purchase.

Conclusion

As an e-commerce business owner, you know how important it is to provide your customers with the best customer experience possible. This is because modern consumers are accustomed to having various options at their fingertips. And they won’t hesitate to take their money elsewhere if they don’t receive what they expect.

Therefore, it is really important to give them the best e-commerce experience, ultimately leading to higher sales and customer loyalty.

After then, you are bound to grow.

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