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The dynamics of brand building has changed and it has changed for the better. Today customers are willing to interact with businesses that value their time and opinion. Over 86% of users have agreed to pay more for a quality experience and it speaks a volume for the importance of building customer-centric businesses.
E-commerce is undoubtedly one of the fastest-growing industries and it is expected to have 2 billion customers by the end of 2020. Growing annually at 23%, e-commerce is set to cover a huge percentage of retail transactions in the coming years. While the industry and popular players are growing, nascent players with limited funds are stuck. Lack of funds and insight is stalling new players.
Investing in customer experience innovation is going to help these bootstrapped marketplace gain success in the long run. Here’s a winning customer experience strategy that will turn your e-commerce store into a success.
1. Put Customers and their Demands First
To identify the patterns followed by customers and their innate desires, e-commerce stores will need to conduct customer journey mapping. One such traversal of routes followed by customers to meet their end goals will reveal multiple challenges and opportunities that exist.
All these challenges and opportunities can help online stores create a quality customer experience that ensures referral and returning sales. A customer journey map highlights nuances, which when dealt can help online stores achieve greater success. Some of the common challenges that customer journey maps highlight are:
• Hectic checkout process
• Definition of categories and interlinks
• Normalization and standardization
2. Improving Product Discovery
Quality customer experience means the easy discovery of relevant products, multiple payment options, and memorable delivery experience. Product discovery is undoubtedly the phrase that sets the mood for a quality experience. When customers are able to find relevant products faster, they make quick decisions and buy it easily.
Product discovery not only simplifies the decision-making process but also offers:
• Highlights barriers and provides an opportunity to remove them
• Opportunities to upscale and cross-sale
• Helps businesses save heavily on research and implementation
3. Work on Your Return Policy
A journey of an online customer starts from a search and ends with products getting delivered. Working on your return policy is important because it plays a crucial role in facilitating decision making. 43% of customers look for a return policy before placing an online order. A vivid and transparent return policy provides the user with peace of mind and ensures that their money is not lost.
Working on return policy allows customers to shop with peace of mind, which is an important aspect of creating a quality customer experience. Apart from aiding a quality experience, and efficient return policy helps with:
• Extra orders, where customers are willing to try new things
• Controls bracketing, where users order multiple products for finding the right size
4. Catalog Management
Well, you might ask why catalog management? Let me tell you, Catalog Management forms the basis of quality on-site search results, it forms the base for efficient identification of products and faster product discovery.
Some of the common challenges relevant to the customer experience that occurs due to errors in the catalog:
• Increased return rates because wrong or imitated products get delivered
• Brand interference where irrelevant products start ranking for genuine keywords
• Slowed product discovery because misplaced attribute values rank wrong products
Leveraging catalog quality checks allow e-commerce players to make their catalog error-free. Catalog enrichment can also assist with additional features like theme-based bucketing, cross-selling, and up-selling.
5. Multiple Payment Option
A lot of customers prefer to place cash on delivery orders because they are in a hurry only to pay the amount in full before the product is delivered. In order to grab the opportunity of buying products at an affordable price, people try to preload their wallets or pre-add their card details.
Multiple payment options simplify the customer experience by making the customers feel valued and as the ultimate winner. When e-commerce players offer multiple payment options, they provide themselves with the opportunity to get in business with varied card issuers like VISA and MasterCard and offer extra benefits to their customers.
Such small but indispensable efforts shape up your customer experience and it impacts revenue in the long run.
6. Protect Users Against Fraud
Triangulation, credit cards, frauds by sellers, and credential stuffing are on the rise. The fact that e-commerce players work with the direct involvement of credit card data, hackers are behind it and are looking forward to gaining illicit benefits.
To offer exceptional customer experience, e-commerce players will have to acquire requisite cybersecurity measures and protect their customers and their card details. To ensure that all cardholders’ data are safe and protect, online stores should start with PCI DSS Compliance and then furnish other compliances like GDPR, CCPA, ISO, and HIPAA, if they deal with a medical history of customers.
Final Thoughts
The E-commerce industry’s growth is powered by the increasing penetration of 4G network and Fintech applications. Together these industries are changing the way people consume services and buy products.
With e-commerce players allowing people to shop from anywhere and anytime, the future is bright and promising. While the industry is growing, winners will be decided on the basis of experience they curate, enterprises that are able to convince their customers with an exceptional experience will win in the long run.
Here’s everything you need to work upon to ensure referral and returning sales. These customer experience management tips will impact the overall dynamics of online stores and usher them towards impeccable growth.
