Why CX is at the heart of e-commerce strategy post-Covid
COVID-19 needs little introduction, and its impact on global business hardly requires an explanation. But with the vaccine roll-out indicating that an end is in sight, businesses are now preparing for trade in the post-COVID world. Frankly, for many, business will never be the same again. Several different lockdowns have demanded that many companies close their doors and shift their trade online. Many of them had to, purely as a way to survive.
Now, some of these doors may stay closed permanently, and companies will instead focus their efforts on an online store with no physical presence to speak of. With that change comes a new set of challenges and tasks; one of them is customer experience (CX). We’re looking into why your eCommerce strategy relies on a positive customer experience and how customer surveys can help you build a responsive, clear, and simple online store that will allow your business to grow.
What Is Customer Experience?
Customer experience describes the way that a business engages with its customers throughout the complete purchasing process. It begins with marketing and includes customer service and sales before concluding with feedback. In short, CX is the journey a customer goes through when they interact with your brand. Online, CX is one of the single most important aspects of your website. Potential customers need to enjoy visiting your page, but there needs to be a clear pathway leading them towards a sale too.
A customer’s shopping experience is often the decisive factor in whether or not they complete a purchase there. Interestingly, the post-purchase phase is seen as one of the most significant parts of CX. Reviews, customer surveys, seller ratings, and feedback all provide invaluable data that allows your team to improve the customer experience. If you can address a customer’s concerns and suggestions, then you can dominate within your industry.
Why Is CX Important For Your eCommerce Strategy?
Happy customers tell their friends, family, and followers about a positive experience. But they won’t hesitate to share the details of a negative experience either. As many businesses will be only too aware, negative reviews can have an incredibly damaging impact on future sales. With so many companies now competing on the internet and more shoppers using and leaving reviews than ever before, good online CX is the difference between a loyal customer and a customer that goes to a different eCommerce store. Here are just a few reasons why CX is vital for your eCommerce strategy;
- New Customers Are Now Online: There’s a whole new generation of shoppers that are now active online. With high streets closed and physical shopping opportunities severely restricted, many older shoppers that have never been online before are now surfing the internet and completing purchases there instead. CX needs to adapt to capture this new type of user. Flashy, modern websites that are non-intuitive, take forever to load, and are difficult to follow, will see novice users quickly turn away with a poor impression of your brand. With a clear, direct, and easy-to-follow customer experience, getting that new sale through eCommerce might equate to capturing a new long-time buyer.
- Secure Payment Builds Trust: Similarly, it’s essential that the experience a customer has with your online store helps to establish trust. This is important when it comes to demonstrating the value of your products and services, but it needs to be clear in your payment gateway as well. Customers feel safer and more secure when they use a trusted payment gateway. Your eCommerce store shouldn’t give them any reason to hesitate as they complete their purchase. If it does, you might not be able to recover that sale.
- Online Shopping Is The Only Shopping Available: The online shopping process is now, for the majority of customers, the only way to shop. Few physical stores are open, and there may be even fewer in the near future. Your online store needs to provide the customer with a complete shopping experience. That means that you need to provide your potential customers with an outstanding online service and see to their every need, the same as you would in-store.
- Your Competitors Are Online Too: You’re not the only brand that has been forced to move online. In fact, many of your competitors will already be there. That being the case, you need to provide your customers with a shopping experience that goes above and beyond what they’ll find on your competitors’ websites. You need to stand out. One of the best ways to do that is to improve your eCommerce store and provide a better shopping experience for your customers. Be sure to include a feedback process within your eCommerce strategy and find out what extra steps you might take to keep a customer on your site.
Use Customer Feedback To Provide Outstanding CX
When you improve customer satisfaction through your eCommerce store, don’t be surprised to discover that you’ve developed a loyal base of long-term customers. CX is one of the most important aspects of every eCommerce strategy. Be sure to make the most of the customer data made available to your team, and your online store will flourish in a post-COVID world.
