A brand is not just about the products it sells. It’s about the sum total of all the interactions that a customer has with a business.
Hence, to create a positive brand value, businesses need to deliver effective experiences to customers at every touch point.
In fact, according to a report, product and price are no longer the key differentiators for businesses to survive and thrive in the online world. Instead, their place is slowly being taken by customer experiences.
If you own or run an eCommerce store, you might already be aware of the impact customer experiences make on your brand.
So, in order to grow your eCommerce brand, getting your eCommerce customer experience (ECX) right must be one of the top priorities.
Learn how to optimize your ECX with eCommerce Customer Experience: The Key to Creating Winning Digital Outcomes
Why Is Customer Experience Important in eCommerce?
A good ECX not only makes your brand more customer-centric but also gives it a competitive edge that helps generate more engagement and revenue.
A report suggests that 80%[i] of customers say they would stop doing business with a company if it delivers poor customer experiences, while for a good customer experience, 86%[ii] of customers are even willing to pay a premium.
Additionally, a good customer experience offers the following benefits that make it even more crucial:
- Build audience’s trust and loyalty
- Develop Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
- Increase brand awareness and referrals
- Improve customer retention and lifetime value
- Accelerate revenue and growth
How To Create Exceptional eCommerce Customer Experience?
Delivering compelling customer experiences is essential for eCommerce businesses to stay relevant and competitive. Here are some ways you can offer the same to win customers and propel brand success.
1. Build Custom Storefronts
Be it creating virtual try-on using AR, adding gamification to browsing and shopping, or customizing user interfaces and content, custom storefronts provide you with complete creative control to add whatever customer-facing experiences you want.
To build custom storefronts, you can adopt headless commerce. Separating the front end from the back end equips you with the flexibility to develop your own eCommerce experiences. Moreover, it also helps you deliver true omnichannel experiences to customers across all channels and platforms.
2. Up Your Marketing Game
A good marketing strategy helps you sway your customers effortlessly. To provide an exceptional ECX with marketing, you need to combine the powers of creativity and analytics.
Creating well-researched and valuable content consistently will help you build brand authority and attract potential customers. And by utilizing analytics, you will be able to measure the performance of your campaigns to optimize your efforts for the best results.
To learn more result-oriented marketing strategies, check out eCommerce Marketing Strategies: The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Business
3. Provide User-Friendly Navigation & Checkout
To create a lasting brand impression, you need to provide your customers with an excellent shopping experience. And this starts with user-friendly and seamless navigation.
Your eCommerce store’s design must be clutter-free with well-defined pathways to allow customers to easily search, select, and buy products.
The checkout process should be simple with minimal friction to persuade customers towards completion. Make sure you offer guest checkout options to allow prospects to effortlessly turn into customers.
4. Create a Community
Communities foster brand awareness and a sense of belonging amongst their customers. They provide brands with a platform to reach their audiences in a more authentic and interactive way.
Social media and email are two of the potent channels to build a community. A close-knitted community will create members who are loyal to your products and become advocates of your brand.
To leverage communities in your online business effectively, explore 4 Tips to Ace Your eCommerce Business With Online Communities
5. Balance Personalization and Privacy
While personalization plays a major role in offering effective customer experiences, users have gone increasingly skeptical of sharing their personal data online.
Owing to growing privacy concerns, consumers are over three times[iii] more likely to abandon brands that over-personalize. So, you must be subtle in your personalization and use only the required data to customize communications.
For effective eCommerce personalization, read Top 8 eCommerce Personalization Tips to Boost Sales
6. Delight Your Customers
Delivering an exceptional customer experience goes beyond the purchase action to form long-term relationships with the customers and retain them. Here are some ways to delight your customers post-purchase:
- Send personalized thank-you notes to customers after shopping.
- Organize giveaways and social contests around the products.
- Implement referral programs to benefit both your existing and new customers.
- Introduce a reward system or loyalty points on each purchase that can be redeemed later.
The Final Note
Today, customers expect every brand interaction to be seamless, personalized, and inter-connected. So, you need to optimize your eCommerce customer experiences accordingly.
This blog post has provided you with some efficient ways to level up your customer experience. So, what’s stopping you from implementing them and achieving your desired ECX?
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References –
[i] HubSpot – The Hard Truth About Acquisition Cost
[ii] SuperOffice – Key Customer Experience Statistics You Need to Know
[iii] Gartner – Q: The Trick to effective personalization? A: Don’t do personalization