Customer experience consists of multiple aspects that are important to people during the whole journey through the sales pipeline and beyond. The way consumers perceive your online store hugely affects conversions and loyalty. Achieving these short-term (a purchase) and long-term (brand advocacy) goals surely requires consistent ameliorations in the following areas: assortment, pricing, customer service, marketing, the online store, and more.
In this article, we’ll focus on the ways to brush up an eCommerce website so that it provides clients with a seamless shopping experience. Let’s talk about performance, the mobile-first approach, omnichannel, personalization, and the power of social proof.
1. Boost the Speed
What can be more irritating than an online store which loads too long and/or abounds with lags? Such an issue can become a sentence for your conversion rate since, most likely, people will close your site.
Therefore, optimizing a website for better performance is a must for every online seller. Numerous measures could be taken to enhance the loading speed:
- draw more attention to the format and size of media files;
- revise caching principles;
- update the CMS to the newest stable version;
- implement cutting-edge web technologies.
But if you want a qualitative change, we’d advise transforming your online store into a progressive web application (PWA). You will most probably have to turn to a full-service Magento development agency (or those who specialize in other eCommerce platforms) to do that as it is no easy task from a technical perspective, yet it brings many benefits.
Progressive web apps are designed to behave pretty much like mobile apps in terms of performance and UX/UI, plus they are really fast. For instance, Puma has recently rebuilt its Mexican version of the store as a PWA (in the screenshot below). The site works instantly and smoothly.
Screenshot taken on the official Puma Mexico website
2. Urgently Become Mobile-Friendly
Frankly speaking, it’s astonishing that we still need to include this point in our list. Since more transactions in eCommerce are made via smartphones than through PCs, the mobile-first approach for online stores must be applied by default.
Nevertheless, there are thousands of quite renowned stores that still have unacceptable UX/UI on mobile. Obviously, such websites require conversion rate boost techniques.
Mobile-friendly design is all about the convenience of use on small screens:
- balanced sizes of buttons (not too small to tap correctly);
- spacious grids (to see commodities clearly on previews and choose the right one even when tapping with a thumb);
- core menu options located the way they are reachable by thumb;
- plain design (including fonts and buttons).
An Adidas mobile app is a brilliant example of a well-done interface. We’d recommend borrowing at least two handy features from it. The first is a menu at the bottom of the page that makes it possible to navigate with one hand. The second is a vertical scroll of a photo gallery which feels intuitively natural and comfortable when people use phones.
Screenshot taken on the official Adidas mobile app
3. Provide Omnichannel Connection
An omnichannel strategy aims to unite all online and offline touchpoints to ensure a truly seamless customer experience. With this method, a customer can start the interaction with a business on one channel (e.g., social media), then switch to another (e.g., the live chat in the online store), and finish somewhere else (e.g., in an offline store) without having to repeat the query. This approach also expands service possibilities.
Omnichannel implies saving all customer data in one place that is accessible to all staff members who work with clients on different stages.
Another significant part is the merger of online and physical shops so that in-store availability checking, BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick up in Store), and BORIS (Buy Online, Return in Store) would be possible. Take a look at the screenshots below from Free People. This online store provides these options (but with some limits).
Screenshot taken on the official Free People website
Screenshot taken on the official Free People website
To be honest, even eCommerce giants can barely boast of achieving genuine omnichannel. It requires advanced software, equipment, and, of course, considerable funding. Anyway, brands are steadily adding some omnichannel features.
4. Personalize the Recommendations
Nowadays, the success of online stores to a large extent depends on technologies. So every year, something new emerges while already existing software is getting more refined and precise.
For instance, artificial intelligence has become a big helper for digital marketers in online retail. AI-powered tools allow you to make truly personalized offers on product pages and in email send-outs. AI’s predictions are based on purchasing history, views, likes, and contents of an abandoned cart. If you want to sell and upsell more efficiently, then explore the capabilities of such instruments.
In the screenshot below is an instance of smart product recommendations on FARFETCH. When users stop browsing a particular item, an algorithm showcases the most similar goods they probably haven’t seen yet.
It looks like I’ve set filters to specify my requirements, but I haven’t wasted my time on this. If you click on “See more”, you’ll see all variations of a red midi dress in this store.
Screenshot taken on the official FARFETCH website
5. Utilize Social Proof
Shoppers’ feedback is not only a precious source of insights to you as an organization. It’s valuable info for the prospects that are about to place an order.
Reading about someone else’s customer experience and opinions on commodities is far more convincing than having only your flowery product description. Of course, this does an eCommerce customer engagement strategy good.
So, don’t overlook word of mouth. This is a practical move for various types of services. For instance, Freshdesk, a SaaS solution provider, uses reviews across their whole website.
Screenshot taken on the official Freshdesk website
Below is another example from Dyson. The brand has a well-designed review section that is easy to navigate:
- prospects see the number of positive, neutral, and negative reviews;
- the total of reviews allows to assume whether the item is sought-after or not;
- the percentage helps to decide if it is worth exploring this product further;
- some extra filters aid in sorting the feedback with the lowest and highest marks as well as the oldest and newest posts.
Screenshot taken on the official Dyson website
Conclusion
Undoubtedly, providing a great customer experience is a challenging matter. It’s made up of various factors, which should all be taken into account. However, this aim is definitely worth all the efforts, amendments, and investments. Concentration on a positive shopping experience is the backbone of customer retention. It eventually leads to an increasing number of regular and loyal clients, guaranteeing your business prosperity. So, do your best to make people like how your eCommerce site works and looks.