An eCommerce company is greatly influenced by the expectations of its customers. After all, according to Forbes, 84% of businesses that work to enhance the customer experience see an increase in sales.
Here, the reasoning is straightforward. Contented clients purchase more goods and services. They readily suggest your business to their friends, neighbors, family, coworkers, and followers on social media.
This tutorial will discuss how customer happiness may be raised in your eCommerce business and how expectations affect the overall customer experience.
Key Takeaways
- Fast Loading Time: Ensuring your website loads quickly is crucial as it significantly impacts user experience and conversion rates. Slow load times lead to higher abandonment rates.
- Promotions and Free Shipping: Offering clear and enticing promotions, along with free shipping, can motivate customers to make purchases and improve overall sales.
- Customer Service: Providing excellent customer service through live chat, comprehensive FAQs, and personalized support helps build trust and loyalty among customers.
- Social Media Links: Integrating social media links encourages customers to share products, enhancing visibility, brand awareness, and credibility through trusted recommendations.
- Transparent Pricing: Displaying pricing details and secure payment options ensures customers feel confident in making purchases, reducing cart abandonment rates.
Building an e-commerce store is not an easy job if you do not know how to treat customers. They always have high expectations and, if you manage to keep up with them, customers will see you as a professional and reliable player in the business. Here’s a list of five things customers expect from your online shop.
1. Fast Loading Time
This is the first contact visitors have with your online store. You might think that one or two seconds do not count, but in this case, loading time can be a crucial factor that decides whether the visitor continues or ends his journey on-site.
As studies have shown, loading time is a major contributing factor to page abandonment. Slower page responses result in increased page abandonments because nobody likes to wait. Kissmetrics presents the data like this (see picture below): a 4-second page load time increases page abandonment by 25%. Visitors rather close the tab and go to another online shop to look up what they want to buy rather than waste time waiting for your page to load.
The main conclusion of the study is that “a one-second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions”. So, put it in numbers and you get a shocking result: “If your e-commerce website makes 100,000 $ a day, a 1-second delay could potentially cost you 2.5k million in lost sales every year”.
So, take some time to improve the loading speed page on your website, to decrease the page abandonment rate and bounce rate. One of the first things to do for a better loading speed is to make sure you have a reliable web hosting provider. You can test the loading time with several tools: Pingdom Tools, Page Speed Insights, GTMetrics, WebPage Test, etc.
Actionable Insights
- Optimize Images: Compress images without sacrificing quality. Tools like TinyPNG and ImageOptim can help.
- Leverage Browser Caching: Ensure that repeat visitors don’t have to reload the entire page every time they visit.
- Minimize HTTP Requests: Reduce the number of elements on your page to speed up load times.
- Use Content Delivery Networks (CDNs): Distribute your content through CDNs to ensure faster delivery to global users.
- Optimize Code: Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML to reduce file sizes and improve load times.
2. Promotions And Free Shipping
Catch your visitors as soon as they enter your online shop and guide their journey on-site with promotions. Maybe visitors are just prospecting the market, just looking around for alternatives and not having a specific goal in mind to buy something. So, when they see a 50%, or 75% discount they might hurry up and order because they do not want to miss the special price.
According to Thomas Smale, loss aversion is a powerful conservative force, which means that we will strive harder not to lose something than we will to gain something. This explains the mechanism of promotions: people are willing to leave money on the table to avoid the possibility of losing something.
The “End of Season – Summer Sale with up to 75% off” from Primrose will encourage some visitors to click on “start shopping” and explore the variety of products.
On buyshedsdirect.co.uk, you can see a great example: they use time pressure to drive visitors to order, by placing a countdown on the homepage that announces to visitors that “The Big Summer SALE’ ends in less than two days. The red color for the “SALE” section is used to get the visitor’s attention and check out what products are on sale.
Besides this, free delivery to most of the United Kingdom is provided, a great hook for visitors.
For example, at Abel&Cole, you save up to £38, and if you order this week you get two gifts, by simply inserting a voucher code when you check out. Simple and efficient!
Actionable Insights
- Clear Messaging: Display promotions prominently on your homepage and product pages.
- Time-Limited Offers: Use countdown timers to create a sense of urgency for limited-time promotions.
- Segmented Promotions: Tailor promotions to different customer segments for more personalized marketing.
- Highlight Free Shipping: Make free shipping offers highly visible and easy to understand.
- Use Pop-ups Wisely: Use exit-intent pop-ups to offer last-minute discounts or free shipping to hesitant shoppers.
3. Customer Service
Nowadays, it’s very important to build and maintain a good relationship with your customers. Gain their trust and transform visitors into loyal customers and promoters of your business. Follow the sales follow your design for your business and apply specific tactics to drive customers through the final stage of it.
Customers have had enough automated responses, so they will be more than delighted to get the answers they need from a real person. Use human faces in the pictures related to the contact forms, phone numbers, and email for better results. Make the customer support method easily available, easy to use, and free.
Besides the standard customer support methods, offer assistance (especially to VIP clients), a structured and clear help platform, tutorials (video tutorials have a great impact on customers), and a simple, yet detailed, FAQ section that contains answers to all possible questions, and concerns visitors might have.
Actionable Insights
- Live Chat: Implement live chat support to provide immediate assistance to customers.
- Comprehensive FAQ: Develop a detailed FAQ section to address common questions and concerns.
- Personalized Support: Use customer data to offer personalized support and product recommendations.
- Social Proof: Display customer reviews and ratings prominently to build trust.
- Follow-Up Emails: Send follow-up emails post-purchase to ensure customer satisfaction and address any issues.
4. Social Media Links
Social media links help people to share products they like with friends or family. So, when someone sees a shared product by a friend, tends to check it out, and it’s more likely to buy it, based on the recommendation. Social media links work on trusted recommendations and increase credibility in your e-commerce store. Therefore, using social media links can increase visibility and brand awareness.
Several studies have shown that after seeing a brand response to a review, 71% of consumers change their perception of the brand. Also, when brands respond to product misuse with guiding explanations, shoppers who see the review response are 186% more likely to purchase, and product sentiment increases by 157%.
As I have recently read, the key to spreading the word is that many people have followers with similar shopping interests which means they already have an incentive to learn more about your brand. People trust people like them!
Here are some examples of how to use social links
On Morrisons, you can pin a product on Pinterest or like it on Facebook. In the fashion industry, you have more sharing options. For example, on Boden, you can tweet the dress you like.
On Warehouse, the social buttons are not very visible, because they are not colored, and they perfectly fit the website’s design.
Actionable Insights
- Easy Sharing Options: Place social media sharing buttons on product pages, blog posts, and other key areas.
- Encourage Reviews: Ask satisfied customers to share their purchases on social media and tag your brand.
- Responsive Interaction: Actively respond to comments and messages on social media to build a strong community.
- Consistent Branding: Maintain consistent branding across all social media platforms.
- Run Social Media Campaigns: Use targeted social media campaigns to drive traffic and sales.
5. Pricing Details Are Easily Available
Display the prices from the beginning and provide as much information about pricing as you can. People want to make sure there are no extra costs and that the payment method is safe. Drive away their fears concerning payment, by showing secure shopping certificates and Visa, Mastercard, American Express, etc. logos.
Actionable Insights
- Transparent Pricing: Display prices on product pages, including any additional costs such as taxes or shipping fees.
- Secure Payment Icons: Show icons for trusted payment methods (Visa, Mastercard, PayPal) to build confidence.
- Price Comparisons: Offer price comparisons with competitors to highlight value.
- Discounts and Offers: Display any available discounts or special offers directly on product pages.
- Clear Return Policy: Make your return and refund policy easily accessible and understandable.
FAQs
How can I effectively use promotions to boost sales?
Effective promotions can be achieved by offering time-limited discounts, clear messaging on your homepage and product pages, and using personalized offers for different customer segments. Highlighting free shipping and using exit-intent pop-ups can also encourage purchases.
What are some best practices for providing excellent customer service?
Best practices include implementing live chat for immediate assistance, developing a comprehensive FAQ section, offering personalized support, displaying customer reviews for social proof, and sending follow-up emails to ensure customer satisfaction.
How do social media links benefit my e-commerce store?
Social media links enable customers to share products with their friends and family, increasing visibility and brand awareness. Positive interactions on social media can also enhance credibility and drive more traffic to your store.
What should I include to make pricing details clear and transparent?
Ensure pricing details are displayed on product pages, including any additional costs like taxes and shipping fees. Use icons for trusted payment methods, offer price comparisons, display any available discounts, and make your return policy easily accessible.
