Crafting Outstanding Customer Experiences in 2022

Customer experience is king! We hear this refrain time and time again in the world of digital marketing – and specifically when marketing more the online retail business – but what does it actually mean?

We all have some perceived notion of what we mean when we talk about customer experience, but is that the correct one? And, perhaps more importantly, are we considering customer experience when we design the systems and processes which attempt to lead visitors to our ecommerce platforms down our sales funnel to become paying, and hopefully repeat, customers?

In this article, we are going to attempt to tackle these questions, so let’s start off in with the best possible foot placed forwards and begin with some definitions.

Customer Experience

When you visit a brick-and-mortar retail store, you are normally greeted by a [hopefully] friendly store associate who is one hand to help you find the item you are looking for – if you came in for something specific – and guide you through the experience. They will answer any questions you might have about the product, help you test or try on the item where appropriate, and offer recommendations which will compliment your selection.

You make your purchase, and you leave the store.

This is the customer experience when applied to physical retail – well, part of it, but we’ll get into that later. Customer experience describes the means by which a brand connects with the customer at every step in the shopping process – a process which begins before they’ve even left the house – right up to making a purchase and beyond.

Obviously, when it comes to ecommerce, there isn’t a physical store with a [hopefully] friendly store associate to guide the experience of the customer, so we have to be a little more creative and thoughtful when considering these factors.

Ecommerce

When it comes to ecommerce, many considerations are similar to the physical store, however.

You still need to think carefully how the store is laid out both online and in person. Does your ecommerce portal have a search function – and perhaps more importantly one which functions well and has the flexibility to recognize keywords and keyword groupings properly.

This author has lost count of the times they have abandoned a shopping process because the search terms they are entering fail to yield the product they are looking for and they know for a fact exists on the site – and we’re talking about someone for whom looking things up online forms a significant portion of their job.

You have to make sure your checkout process is streamlined and as frictionless as possible – consider for a moment the way a supermarket will open new checkouts during busy periods to reduce queues. While on the surface this appears to be a function designed to benefit the customer it is in fact designed to reduce the chances of a customer seeing long queues and deciding to leave their cart in the aisle and shop at a quieter store.

The exact same thing happens when shopping online. If the checkout process is unnecessarily long or complicated, the customer may simply decide it’s not worth the hassle and look elsewhere. That, or, in the case of an impulse purchase, the desire to buy may have worn off and the customer has second guessed themselves as to whether the product is actually something they need.

"To succeed in ecommerce, it’s essential to look up from the computer and see the world through your customers’ eyes," say the online shopping experts at Shopify. "Shopping has become more than a transactional activity for consumers. It’s about being engaged and entertained. You can have a website selling one of the most in-demand products on the market, but if the consumers navigating your ecommerce store have a poor experience, you’re losing out on valuable sales. Instead of buying from you, they’re going to a competitor or changing their mind about making a purchase altogether."

Final Thoughts

Customer experience needs to permeate every corner of your ecommerce offering. It needs to begin with how you make customers aware of your brand in the first place, take them from the discovery stage, through consideration, right up to completion, and then into after sales engagement and support.

Customers want to feel their interaction with an online brand is about more than just a purchase but instead focused on creating a long lasting and mutually beneficial relationship.

"Remember that the success of your ecommerce experience depends on your customers. Be everywhere they are, with convenient and seamless shopping experiences – including simplified checkout and follow-up," concludes Shopify. "You’ll soon see the benefits of happier customers and more sales."

Or they’ll quite simply shop elsewhere.

Customer experience is set to be part of the conversation at eTail Boston 2022, taking place in August at The Sheraton, Boston.

Download the agenda today for more information and insights.