How To Create Better Customer Experiences Than The Competition! Guest Post
Customer experience is the make-or-break detail of online retail. With all the competition and different methods of shopping available to customers, a customer service experience they won’t forget is one of the best assets an online business can have.
If you’re not selling in a way that appeals to the customer and makes the experience as enjoyable as possible it doesn’t matter what your product is, it will not sell. Finding yourself losing out to competitors with better customer experience? Take a look at our tips below.
Tailor the experience
The best way to provide an unforgettable customer experience is to try and match your customers’ wildest expectations. This isn’t just about opening your inbox to suggestions and implementing everything they say. It starts by building a comprehensive profile of your typical customer.
We’ve never had so much access to detailed customer data before, and customers have never been so willing to give it away before. Use this information to build your ideal client.
A tailored customer experience is a streamlined one. Customers generally want as easy an experience as possible, with elements unique to them sprinkled in. Don’t base it around your preference or even what your competitors are doing for their customers. Find out what your shoppers want and build a system just for them.
Listen to customer feedback
Just like tailoring the experience, this tip is all about listening to your customers. In the same way that customers are happy to share their data, they’ve never been more willing and anxious to give their opinions.
Take their feedback on the process to heart and see how you can add something that’ll really catch their eye and make your website memorable. While not all their feedback is directly actionable, this is basically a way of letting your customers plan their own experience for you. If you’re vocal about how you’ve structured a service based on their suggestions, it can make customers feel more assured.
You aren’t going to get the customer experience right the first time around, or the second and probably not the third. The more feedback you have to draw on and the more you listen to that feedback, the better placed you’ll be to meet your customer’s expectations.
Think visually
Online experiences are becoming ever-more visual ones. High-quality websites and social media platforms now put a huge emphasis on images and videos. Visuals contribute a huge amount to the customer experience. When a customer is shopping online they can’t hold a product or get a sense of it physically, so giving them the clearest idea of the product comes in the execution of the visual content. This is why we’ve seen a rise in augmented reality methods and a preference for video content over images on retail sites in the last few years.
This is a vital part of what helps set your customer service apart from your competitors. People appreciate being given the most information possible about the product and will shop with the retailer they believe is most trustworthy, and presentation is a huge part of making this work. Think about how you can give your customers a clearer picture by experimenting with visuals content.
Use imagery and video to give your customers a behind-the-scenes look at your business to further build trust. Being able to peek behind the curtain of the operation is a great way to convince customers you’re a genuine retailer that cares about the products.
If your business is a humble office and stock room, shoot a video of your team packing and posting orders to give yourself more of a human face. If you have a physical store, you could try creating a beautiful retail space and showing it off on social media platforms such as Instagram. Both these examples will help develop your brand identity and offer an insight into the people and effort that goes into running your business.
Think mobile
Even though we all have one in our pocket, a huge portion of websites still commit the cardinal sin of forgetting about mobiles. The majority of customers will either do their initial browse or even purchase through their phones, and if your website isn’t optimized there’s no way you can deliver a half-decent customer experience.
Mobile optimization is about more than how your website works on a different platform, it’s about appealing to an entirely different customer mindset, a casual one that’s more open to exploration. Think about the key journeys your customers take, how could they be hampered by your website on mobile and how they could be improved?
If you’re pushing something through your social media it’s more likely to be viewed on mobile, so the page needs to have a mobile user focus. Delivering good customer service via mobile platforms is one of the best ways to assure customers you’re professional and can be trusted. It sets apart good customer service from fantastic customer service.
Invest in a great website
How can you provide good customer service on something that looks 20 years out of date? Customer service is about hitting a level of expectation, and a professional, clear and helpful website will make the whole experience as pleasing and memorable as possible for your customers.
Investing in a professional-looking website should be the first step for any online business, and it pays off in how it provides excellent customer service. Your website should be able to adequately answer any question your customer has, either through FAQ pages, chatbot features or a clearly listed phone number so they can call you up. Bad web design can cost you visits. Don’t open yourself up to having lost and frustrated customers.
Customer experience is an ever-growing beast that changes as technologies and customer expectancy changes. Keeping up with the competition on this basis is vital to your business, but can be hard to do. It’s important to focus on experimenting with new methods of presentation and having a well defined and tested user experience for your website.
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