An Oracle study reveals just how important the shopping experience is in the minds of consumers.
Customer Experience and Loyalty
SOURCE: Oracle 2016 Study
When it comes to your website and online presence, great customer service is just one piece of the shopper experience. Taking into account your website and how easy it is for people to find products, the speed of page load time, and the overall design all play a significant role in the experience your shoppers have with your business.
These days the human attention span is hovering around 7 seconds. We’re constantly being lured by distracting text messages, app notifications, or the need to check the latest news alert. Your business is competing with a lot of noise and you might only get one chance at capturing a customer. Having an effective strategy for improving customer satisfaction on your website is a major retailer recommendation and making sure the experience is the best is a critical goal. It’s true that 88% of online consumers say they are less likely to return to a website after a bad experience.
Making your site shine and attract qualified customers isn’t impossible. Read on for some helpful tips on improving customer satisfaction.
You may have the best retail showroom in the state, but if the outside of your building is less than stellar, shoppers may never come inside.
The same is true of your website. Pictures tell the story and represent who you are. Often, visitors will notice the pictures first (most humans interpret the world first through visuals). Shoppers have expectations when they visit a website. Strong visuals, quite simply, are key.
Use stock-photography of happy shoppers or hire an expert to capture your store professionally online. The visuals drive your message. Be sure the images are well-lit and framed appropriately.
Also, it shouldn’t have to be said, but beautiful photos must extend to the products you carry. Work with an experienced website developer or directly with your manufacturers to get the best product images available to display on your website. Shoppers crave visuals and when you show them the most realistic digital representation of merchandise you’re one step closer to acing your customer satisfaction goal.
Most businesses focus on the content on their site. It’s important and one of the biggest customer satisfaction points we make to our retailers. Yet, if you want to improve customer satisfaction, you need to eliminate confusion. The fastest way to do this is to design your navigation for the customer. Can shoppers come to your website and find what they are searching for in 1 or 2 clicks? Do they know intuitively where to look to find that information or the best place to browse?
If shoppers struggle to use your website and find what they want, you are literally losing sales and driving buyers right to your competitors. According to Google, 79% of consumers say they will search for another site to complete the purchase if your site is not mobile optimized or they can’t find what they want quickly.
If you are not providing a great mobile website experience, you are missing out on a huge population of potential sales. Even if you don’t have an ecommerce website (yet!), consumer demand a seamless mobile website. These days, 65% of all time spent online in the United States is on a mobile device! In addition, search engines started prioritizing mobile-friendly sites in its search results – if you won’t take our word, consider listening to Google!
One way to improve the customer experience and improve customer satisfaction on your website is to add elements that will encourage shoppers to engage with your site. The more engaged shoppers are with your website, they more likely they are to convert to buyers and potential repeat shoppers.
Here are few things you might consider:
Other engagement tools could include product filters and other personalization and customization tools.
By featuring your online reviews, you’re letting your satisfied customers help you sell. Reviews are powerful evidence of shoppers impression and satisfaction of your store, your service, and your products. Customers place a big value on reviews with 97% of customers saying they look online for local business reviews before shopping a store and 60% trust those reviews as much as personal recommendations.
By making it easy for visitors to find online reviews on your website, you can manage what they read rather than have them go elsewhere to get the information. Consider creating a place on your site for shoppers to leave reviews and direct in-store shoppers to review their purchase experience on your website.
Want to take the reviews one step further? Encourage video testimonials. Since shoppers are equipped with mobile cameras on their devices they can leave live-action feedback. Seeing the product in their home can be a powerful advocate for other shoppers.
Your online showroom is an extension of your brick and mortar location. If you want to really improve customer satisfaction online, start identifying your primary selling proposition and tell your story!
Starting a blog helps engage shoppers in several ways. It can increase engagement by providing information about topics in which your customers are interested. Let them find answers to the questions they may have on your website rather than doing an online search and finding an answer from your competitors.
You can also use lifestyle content and images to both entertain and inform. While professional images are recommended for your home page and product pages, blog posts can have casual or amateur photos (in moderation) from your showroom or events.
Blogging has been proven to improve conversion rates. According to Hubspot, businesses that prioritize blogging experience an incredible 13 times increase in their ROI! The same study also shows that the more content you have on your website, the more leads you get and the more you can improve customer satisfaction.
Providing the best customer experience possible is the key to building a brand, generating trust, creating loyalty, making sales, and nurturing customer satisfaction.
When you create a great first impression, present high-quality images, interactive tools, make intuitive website navigation, design for mobile-friendly devices, showcase reviews, and provide fresh content, shoppers will make your website a digital destination.
Remember satisfied (and dissatisfied) customers will tell their inner-circle all about your store…make sure what’s their saying reflects an outstanding online and in-store buying experience. With 88% of consumers spending more after a great buying experience – you can’t afford to ignore these tips!
