A big thank you to Mikkel from Dixa for this post!
The number of customers who will switch to a competitor if they’re not satisfied with the service provided is high. As many as 80% of a survey’s respondents confessed they stopped doing business with a company due to poor customer service. Since there are very few businesses today that have no competitors, the chances of your customers coming back after an unsatisfactory experience with your company are low.
For an e-commerce business, it’s that much more important to constantly improve your customer satisfaction to differentiate your store from others. What’s more, customers are willing to pay a premium for excellent service regardless of their income level.
This should prompt you to adopt strategies aimed at increasing e-commerce customer satisfaction. Take a look at the following tactics to level up your customer experience and get inspired to make an action plan.
1. Ensure that your e-commerce website is easy to navigate
There’s nothing more frustrating than a website that’s slow to load and hard to navigate. When customers realize that they can’t access the page they’re clicking on or aren’t able to see the image because of its excessively high resolutions, they’re likely to bounce off. This leads to a high bounce rate and a low conversion rate for e-commerce business owners.
To avoid this, consider uploading pictures of an appropriate size and using breadcrumbs to help users navigate freely. Breadcrumbing helps filter the products by category so that the buyers don’t encounter any issues finding the right product. You should also optimize your website so that it’s easily accessible for mobile users.
2. Create converting product pages that engage the user
As an e-commerce business, your biggest priority is to lure the user in by showcasing how beneficial the product will be for him. To do this, you need to choose the best images of the product and write compelling captions that resonate with the reader. Talk about the features that make this product stand out from the rest, and you’ll win the customer over in no time. You might even be able to get a positive review out of him.
When designing the product pages, pay attention to copywriting, visuals, and navigation. Your message should be strong, informative, intuitive, and on-brand. If it’s complex and tedious, chances are your prospects will go looking for a similar product somewhere else.
3. Don’t overcomplicate the checkout process
The shopping experience you provide might be excellent, but if the checkout process is hard to figure out, your website visitors will leave your e-commerce store without purchasing anything. A whopping 68.8% of customers abandon their carts, so it should be a must for you to find a way to prevent this from happening.
Make the “add to cart” button clear and simple to design a checkout flow that converts. Ensure that the “pay now” button is visible to the website visitors at all times and that the contents of their cart are displayed well. If you can offer free shipping, all the better.
4. Use customer testimonials to build trust
Did you know that positive reviews easily influence 90% of customers to make the purchasing decision? Customer testimonials act as an excellent motivator for first-time buyers to go through with the purchase. There’s more to customer reviews — displaying reviews can boost conversions by 270%. So, the more reviews you’re able to show to the public, the higher is the likelihood of your prospects trusting that the product is worthy.
Take the time to request a review from a customer who has purchased from you. You can even offer an incentive in the form of a discount or a freebie to encourage the customer to leave a review.
5. Offer more than just one way to contact customer service
Omnichannel communication is on the rise, and rightfully so — customers are expecting to reach a customer service representative on multiple platforms. Offering a phone number and an email address isn’t enough anymore, people want to have access to their favorite companies on social media. If you can provide additional support via text messages and Live Chat, you increase your chances of improving customer satisfaction by a whole lot.
The time it takes for you to get back to the customer plays a role too. You should respond within 4 hours to keep the customer satisfied. To set the expectations straight, consider disclosing the approximate time frame for responses.
6. Streamline the delivery process
Once the customer hits that “buy now” button, it becomes your job to ensure that he receives the package quickly. Potential delivery issues may arise from time to time, and you have to be prepared to deal with them. Since 13% of customers will never shop with an e-commerce company again if the delivery is late, it’s essential to prioritize post-purchase customer satisfaction.
This doesn’t mean that there will never be any mishaps like a lost item or the wrong size of the ordered item. You just have to acknowledge the issue and resolve any complaints before they prompt the customer to leave you for the competitor.
7. Provide timely solutions to customers’ issues
Speaking about customers’ issues, the way you handle them speaks volumes about the quality of your customer support. To fix your customer’s problem, make a point to listen. Show that you feel for the customer and offer a viable solution or even a couple of solutions if possible. Then, follow up with the customer to confirm that the issue is solved and the customer is happy.
You could also address the issue within the company if it occurs frequently. This way, you’ll be able to eliminate the number of slip-ups in the future and ensure that the customer satisfaction rate doesn’t suffer from it.
8. Measure customer satisfaction
Another way to keep your customers happy at all times is to track customer satisfaction metrics. These will give you a good idea about the state of customer service in your company and expose the weak parts that should be worked on. Here are some of the most popular ones:
- Bounce Rate: it indicates the number of website visitors who end up leaving a single web page after clicking on it;
- Cart Abandonment Rate: it shows the percentage of buyers who added an item to their carts but never completed the purchase;
- Repeat Customer Rate: it shows the percentage of customers who’ve made more than just one purchase from your shop;
- Conversion Rate: it represents how many of your website visitors went through with the purchase after visiting your shop;
- Net Promoter Score: it measures customer loyalty and satisfaction once they’ve made the purchase.
9. Build a loyal following on social media
Customers tend to trust brands that have a strong online presence along with reviews. On top of that, 71% of consumers who’ve had a positive experience with a brand on social media are likely to recommend it to their friends and family. So, building a loyal following on Facebook and Instagram is a must-have.
Create a content plan for your social media accounts and follow it to the T if you want to gain the trust of your customers. Make sure that you respond to every DM, and you’ll see how quickly your customer satisfaction rate will improve.
In summary
To differentiate your e-commerce shop from thousands of others, you need to pay extra attention to the customer experience you provide. With customers willing to pay more for excellent customer service irrespective of their income level, every online business would benefit from upgrading its customer support strategy.
Some of the most commonly used tactics to improve e-commerce customer satisfaction rates are making the website easy to navigate, ensuring high conversion rates via customer engagement, making a checkout possess simple, and showcasing customer testimonials. The other ones include offering omnichannel communication, streamlining the delivery process, quickly fixing customers’ issues, measuring customer satisfaction, and building a social media presence.
When your website and the purchasing process are optimized, and your customers can reach out to you on various channels, including social media, you’re in for a treat. You can then count on the customer feedback to help build trust and lure in new prospects who’ll be inclined to choose you over your competitor. Shift your focus to the customer, and you won’t have to come up with an additional strategy aimed at building brand loyalty — your customers will stick by your side for good.