If you’ve read our ‘Everything you need to know about customer experience’ blog, you’ll know just how important CX is to the customer journey. A bad experience with your brand can alienate customers – whether they couldn’t find you on social media, had trouble navigating your website or got annoyed by an irrelevant ad on Google.
Here are five tips to help you make sure your customers’ online experience is hitting the mark, so you can start boosting sales and reducing cart abandonment.
1. Adopt a mobile-first approach
63% of visits to ecommerce sites come from mobile devices – if customers can’t browse or buy from your site easily on-the-go, they’ll simply head elsewhere! Google also prioritises mobile-friendly sites in their search engine results, so if you want to rank well, it’s a box you need to tick.
Test how your entire site operates on mobile, from your chatbot right down to filling in a form or purchasing a product. You may discover there are certain features that don’t work or display correctly. You could also run a survey which pops up when people are viewing your site on mobile – this will help give a good indication as to whether things are working the way they should or not.
2. Make the checkout process a breeze
More than £18 billion in sales is lost every year due to cart abandonment and there are a lot of reasons why online shoppers choose not to finish their orders. The biggest reasons for cart abandonment include:
- Extra costs at the checkout, such as unexpected shipping or booking fees (55%)
- Being forced to create an account (34%)
- Long or complex checkout processes (26%)
- No trust in the website (17%)
Fortunately, combating the above complaints is easy; and while there will always be people that change their minds, following the below tips should help to reduce cart abandonment:
- Make the process as simple as possible – don’t use long, complicated forms!
- Only ask for the information you need or, if you’d like to try and collect additional info, make certain fields optional
- Clearly show the benefits of creating an account, or allow them to checkout as a guest
- Use trust signals to reassure customers – display your star rating at the checkout and a link to your customer reviews in case customers are having second thoughts!
3. Personalise everything
Long gone are the days when you could count using your customer’s name as personalisation. Now consumers expect so much more, but at the same time, they don’t want you to tailor their experience so much so that it comes across as ‘creepy’. That can be quite a hard balance to strike, but there are techniques and features you can use.
Dynamic content, for example, allows you to tailor various content on your website based on information such as the visitor’s location, the time of day, and more. If you’re a clothing retailer, this could allow you to advertise summer clothing to those visiting your site from locations where the sun is shining, and raincoats to those browsing from colder, damper locations.
You shouldn’t just tailor the content on your website, though. Everything from your social media channels to your PPC ads should be aimed at your different customer personas. For more information on how to personalise your customer experience, click here to read our blog.
4. Run a health check on your website
Shoppers, especially online, don’t have much patience. 40% of people will abandon a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load, so test your site speed (across all devices and browsers) to check yours meets your customers’ expectations.
404 errors and broken pages may also result in customers leaving your site prematurely. There are lots of free tools out there that will quickly tell you if there are any broken links on your site, so you can fix them easily.
Most importantly, your site needs to be simple to navigate. Can visitors find what they are looking for quickly? Or do they click around for ages and eventually give up? A quick customer survey can help you gather feedback on where your site may be falling short and identify any pain points your visitors are having.
5. Build trust with customer reviews
Consumers are growing more aware of scams and fake businesses, so when they shop online, they’re on the look out for various trust signals that show that a site is legitimate. If you’re not a well-known brand, you may have a harder time winning trust with consumers and will need to show them you’re the real deal with lots of happy customers!
Displaying your reviews (both good and bad) from your genuine customers on your homepage, product pages and checkout page allows visitors to do their research and feel reassured that you’re going to deliver the service you offer! They’re also proven to boost sales. Win, win!
Be sure to also display trusted logos within your industry (such as ATOL if you’re a travel brand), testimonials and award wins. You don’t want to plaster your homepage with logos, but anything that proves you are who you say you are can help!
Still need help? Talk to our experts!
We know everything there is to know about consumer trust and customer experience, so if you’d like to discover what reviews can do for your business, get in touch with us today.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Laura Varley, Content Marketing Executive
Laura works in the Content Team, but does way more than write blogs. Specialising in digital copy, she makes sure our SEO is up to scratch and regularly keeps the website flowing with fresh and engaging content. She also plays an active role in Feefo’s charitable efforts as a key member of our charity committee.
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