The ecommerce industry is incredibly competitive and if you want to get ahead of the competition, you need to work on improving your customer experience. Consumers have high expectations and there are a lot of big retailers that offer a huge range of products with next day delivery. Even though smaller companies may not be able to match that standard, you still need to offer the best possible experience.
Although quality products and competitive pricing are important, many consumers value experience over anything else and they will not return to a company if the experience is bad, regardless of how much they like the products. If you are concerned about your customer experience, these are some of the best ways to improve it.
Fast Shipping
Fast shipping is the most important part of the ecommerce customer experience because people have high expectations. Companies like Amazon offer next day delivery as standard and even same day shipping in some places. So, if you are making people wait a week to get their products, that’s going to put people off.
It’s important that you find a reliable courier company that can get your products out quickly. Anything more than 3 days is going to make people think twice about buying products from you. If you expand your business overseas and start shipping around the world, you need to find full truck load companies to take products to a distribution center and then find a good local courier to get your products out. This will make it a lot faster so you can still offer a great experience even when shipping overseas.
Intuitive Website Design
Your website design is hugely important as well because ecommerce is supposed to be quick and efficient. The major benefit of shopping online is that you can easily find a product and order it to your door in seconds, but that’s not the experience that your customers will have if your website is poorly designed.
Make sure to keep it simple and create a logical menu system that is easy to navigate. You also need a good search function so people can immediately find what they are looking for. Website design is also important because it helps you to create a good first impression, so make sure to invest in a professional web designer.
Responsive Customer Service
If a customer has a question about a product before they buy or a problem with a product that they have already purchased, it is important that you respond to their query quickly. People will quickly get frustrated if they have to call you up and wait on hold for ages.
You can improve response times in your customer service department by using live chat services and creating a phone menu system that ensures that customers are always connected to the right person.
Unless you take these steps to improve the customer experience, your ecommerce company will struggle to match up to the competition and you will soon fall behind. But if you focus on the customer experience, you will get a lot of repeat customers and your business will grow.
