Customer experience (also known as CX) is defined by the interactions and experiences your customer has with your business throughout the entire customer journey, from first contact to becoming a happy and loyal customer.
CX is an integral part of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). (1)
Five Benefits of Enhanced eCommerce Customer Experience
- Increase customer loyalty – ensure that your current customers remain your customers.
- Increase customer satisfaction – make sure that customers are satisfied from start to finish through the entire shopping cycle. All functions should be tested and verified.
- Better word-of-mouth marketing – such as positive reviews and recommendations – customers are the best advocates that help increase your sales.
- Increase revenue per customer – customers have a good relationship with your store and prefer to purchase additional items originally purchased elsewhere.
- Increase return on marketing spending – If new customers become loyal customers, you will get more sales from the same marketing budget.
1. Finding your website
Make sure that your site has proper metadata: SEO titles and meta description, sitemap, and product metadata. Use Google Search Console to inspect your site for coverage and sitemap. It is a good practice to examine your site regularly with Google Search Console for search errors and fix them.
2. Product search
Ensure your search is optimized and your product descriptions have enough information when they appear in search results. Make sure that the same information is available on every product page. Also, ensure that each product page can be a landing page if a customer lands directly on that page. Don’t think that everyone will visit the home page.
3. Optimized product pages
Organize information into critical data and other information that might help shoppers finalize their decision. For example, washing instructions could be vital for the fashion retail industry, and the fashion model size on the item’s photo is a nice-to-have detail, just to name a few.
4. Mobile friendly
Main functions are easily performed on a phone or a tablet. Run the entire shopping cycle on tablets and phones to catch any gaps in the process. Use Google Search Console to check page experience on desktop and mobile.
5. Accessibility
It is imperative and essential that your website is accessible to all. You can purchase special plugins to help make that process easier. Here is an example of a plugin – https://accessibe.com/.
6. Correct inventory status
The correct product inventory status is one of the most critical factors determining your customer satisfaction. Nothing is worse than getting the dreaded out-of-stock notification.
7. Communication
Email communication (transactional vs. marketing) should be appropriately set up. All emails should have your brand information clearly visible. All email addresses being used should be whitelisted. Check out the detailed instruction here for Mailchimp – https://mailchimp.com/en-ca/help/about-company-allowlisting/.
8. Customer service information
The customer Service Information link should always be visible at the header or footer on mobile screens and desktops.
9. A clear and easy return policy
The policy should be clearly defined with links throughout the website.
10. Feedback
Allow the ability to collect any feedback from clients and prospects. It should be different from customer service. Add a Feedback link to a page or a form in the footer.
References
- Why Customer Experience Is Key to Scaling Revenue Growth, https://www.superoffice.com/blog/customer-experience-strategy/
