What Is Ecommerce Customer Experience?
Ecommerce customer experience is the consumer perception of the effectiveness of the products and services of an ecommerce brand. This also includes interaction with the website and other parameters that a customer comes across during the process. This perception affects their future buying decisions from the brand and in turn their feedback for the brand in the form of online reviews and word-of-mouth.
Ways To Improve Ecommerce Customer Experience
Optimize Website For Mobile Devices
Mobile devices have always been used to view content on the go. 2020 witnessed people from around the world spending more time at home than ever before, using mobile devices for shopping and other purposes during lockdowns. This has exponentially increased the demand and importance of mobile-optimized websites. The ease of navigation, font sizes, white space, and the loading speed of the website must be considered while optimizing the website for mobile devices.
Go Omnichannel
Ecommerce is no longer just about websites. More people are spending time on social media channels, and social commerce has gained prominence. With the introduction of the “Shops” feature on Facebook and Instagram, social media and online shopping experiences have intertwined. Ecommerce businesses need to take advantage of their customers’ new social media behaviour to understand their preferences and push products accordingly.
Product Pages
A product page is where all the information about products, like their pictures and descriptions is displayed. Creative and descriptive product descriptions are important to have on product pages, but attractive product pictures with appropriate spacing and seamless page navigation is what makes all the difference in their sales.
Simple And Seamless Checkout
The first step to reducing the chances of cart abandonment is creating an easy checkout process. Consumers should be able to pay using a variety of options like net banking, credit and debit cards, and multiple payment wallets. Payments must be secure and the number of steps and pages in the checkout process should be limited.
Customer Service
We cannot talk about customer experience without discussing customer service. Customers of today make purchases on the go and also expect support while on the move. And for businesses with a multichannel presence, it is important to be able to offer quick and seamless support on all their channels.
Shipping Options
Consumers love all things free. And for them, free shipping on products is a major expectation and purchase incentive. Consumers have been proven to be willing to spend more on products that have less or no shipping charges rather than saving up on products only to spend that money on shipping.
Personalization
Personalization of shopping experience instils a sense of individuality in your customer along with belongingness to your brand. Addressing them by their first name in your communications with them, sending them product recommendations based on their past purchases, allowing them to create their own product, etc. can strengthen their relationship with your brand. Here, AI and chatbots can be of great help.
Transparent Returns Policy
Be clear with your customers from the very beginning about this. As consumers won’t be able to try your product before purchasing it, it is important that they are able to easily find and understand it.
Customer Reviews
Nothing assures people of a business’s products or services more than its past customers’ experience with it. Have all the positive reviews for your products from different online channels upfront on your website and encourage your new customers to share theirs as well.
Conclusion
Customer satisfaction is paramount for any ecommerce business. And in the constantly evolving technology-driven world, businesses need to ensure that they keep upgrading to match changing consumer behaviour. Businesses must understand their target segment and use one or a combination of the above-mentioned techniques to improve customer experience.
