Now more than ever, customer experience (CX) is rapidly overtaking price and product as the crucial differentiator between brands. Company leaders are increasingly recognizing that superior CX is key to driving conversions (source: Gartner). This trend doesn’t just apply to the consumer market. According to Sirius Decisions, for 75% of B2B customers, CX is the primary factor that determines which provider businesses choose to work with. Delivering an amazing e-commerce experience through relevant, meaningful, and painless customer journeys will help brands build a compelling presence online and drive repeated purchases from loyal customers. In this new era of tech-powered commerce, brands are in a cutthroat race to stay relevant to evolving experience-hungry shoppers.
Consumers are increasingly demanding speed and convenience
In today’s world, consumers are spoiled for choice by brands competing in a technology-enabled landscape. Free shipping, easy return options, and a seamless check-out experience are the minimum requirements expected from consumers. Brands should ensure that their e-commerce journey encourages, rather than frustrates, shoppers.
By delivering the basics and providing relevant filters, easy options to edit carts, and pre-filled forms, brands can help to remove pain points along their buyers’ journeys. This is a fundamental step to pave the way to repeated purchases and customer loyalty. Today’s consumers are also impatient: according to Google, almost 15% of customers will abandon loading a site page if it takes more than three seconds.
Consumers demand delightful and uplifting experiences
Today’s customer-centric landscape means that the power is in consumers’ pockets. Equipped with their mobile phones, customers can quickly compare your brand to hundreds of competitors, and quickly determine everything from how pleasing a website design is to how expensive shipping costs are. Consumers are aware of what a brand’s competitors are doing, which means that the brand should know this too! It only takes one other company to offer a more attractive shopping experience to cause customers to jump ship.
Combining value-adding content with striking visuals is crucial in today’s highly competitive landscape, where sticky, successful brands are built more around an aspirational lifestyle than a product. Research from Forbes reveals that almost 90% of online shoppers expect detailed content surrounding brands’ product offerings and additional data from Big Commerce shows that almost 25% will review social media recommendations before making a purchase. Brands should think beyond just their website to ensure that they are offering consistent customer interactions across all their online (and offline) channels.
Create a seamless online-to-offline experience
Findings from Deloitte show that brands’ digital activities influence over half of all in-store purchases, with omnichannel customers spending 208% more than those who only shop in-store. Even brands without brick-and-mortar stores can forge new opportunities to interact with consumers face to face. Pop-up stores are a means to creating unique, ephemeral experiences that achieve intimacy on a personal level, while also aggressively increasing brand awareness on social platforms.
E-commerce is a valuable opportunity for brands to stand out from their competitors with outstanding service and enriching experiences that delight and uplift consumers. Identifying pain points along the journey, spanning everything from brand discovery to first purchase will remove frustrating obstacles that prevents conversions. At the same time, brands can use their digital presence to drive consumers into showcase stores or pop-up expositions. To learn more about how to deliver a seamless experience for online shoppers, get in touch with us at [email].
