Considering PwC’s annual consumer survey’s results: almost 40% of consumers prefer shopping in physical store at least once a week and only 27% love online shopping, for sure we should find some ways to improve our customer experience in e-Commerce.
It seems that customers prefer physical stores, despite some important benefits of online shopping, like:
- Time, this irreversible resource – you don’t have to take an entire day off just because you need a new pair of trousers, a t-shirt or you want a new pair of shoes.
- Comfort – online you have so many opportunities. You have all your beloved stores in one place! And no, the answer it’s not the mall, it’s the internet. Every store at just a click distance!
- Acces to reviews – because trust us in e Commerce it’s very important. You will be able to find out what others think about a specific store and its products.
Do you know why you should engage with your customers even if you don’t have a direct relationship with them, like in a retail shop?
Certainly these statistics we have from Quicksprout, will convince you with no need of more other words.
Do you want more reasons?
Well let us tell you that it’s 6 times more expensive to gain a new customer than keep your current customers happier… And as Shankman Honig tells us, on average consumers tell 15 people about their good experience and 24 about the bad experiences.
And things can get worse: we’ve mentioned before that customers that choose to make purchases from an online store have access to reviews… Yes this is a benefit, a big one for your client, but if you don’t know how to handle the business-client relationship and he gets disappointed, he’ll probably write a negative review about you/your products.
And please don’t treat this like: it’s only ONE review… why?
Because every new prospective customer who will search for you on the internet could come across it.
When talking about physical stores, a big plus they have is customer service. In many cases some clients decide to go in one store or another just because they developed a relationship with the seller. They can ask them for an opinion, ask to keep them some products or tell them about new arrivals.
You could say that all this is happening naturally since there’s a human touch and the seller talks to the customer just when he is in the store. That’s exactly our point, too.
We want to show you how you could communicate with your clients just at the right time: when they are in your online store.
- Turn your visitors into your friends. Start communicate with them.
Having all your visitors in your database, it’s like having all your friends in your phone agenda. What do you do when something important happens in your life? You pick up your phone and call all of them!
Of course they are your friends – that’s way you have their phone numbers. But what if you’d have all of your visitors’ email address and every time you have something important to tell them you’d send them an email?
How can you do that?
A pretty simple idea, but with a great impact, it’s a dynamic subscription on your website. We are not talking about the usual newsletter subscription. It’s more than that. Try to reward your visitors for their subscription. Give them a good reason (think about what they want to receive – a great deal, not what you want to offer), and you will see how your database will increase significantly.
Do you know what’s the big deal with this dynamic subscription? It will not only bring you new subscribers, it will also bring you happy new customers!
Look at this example of dynamic subscription that increased an online shop’s database with 12% in the first month alone.
Dynamic Subscription
- Remind them about their shopping carts. The forgotten ones.
We already know that cart abandonment is a big problem of online retailers. Baymard Institute calculated the average cart abandonment rate through a bunch of studies. Right now, in 2015, it’s about 68.07%. That’s huge, right?
If you were a physical store and one of your customers, after browsing a while through your products, wants to leave your store without telling you anything, wouldn’t you like to stop him and ask if he needs some help, if there’s any problem or make him a special offer?
We bet you’d like to do that! Because you want happy customers too, right?
Let us tell you that you can do the same thing in your online store.
You can set up a live cart abandonment message, that’s displayed right just when they want to leave your website page, which reminds them about the beautiful products they left right there, adding a special discount for him, exactly for his unconfirmed purchase.
- Help your customers make the decision and place an order
Nowadays, with so many options around them, visitors are soooo undecided!
We’re sure that sometimes this happens to you, too. You browse through so many websites, through so many products, and finally you find one that you would like to buy. But something happens and you just give up. What if someone would make you a good offer for that particular one? Would you buy it? We are sure you will, because sometimes we just need an incentive.
That’s what happens to your clients,too.
You just have to figure out what they want. It can be as simple as it sounds. You just need to identify through your visitor’s browsing history, which product is his favorite one and make him a good offer, and you will see that he will buy immediately.
Live Product Recommender
So, as you can see, despite the differences between a physical store and an online one, you can find some simple solutions to build a stronger relationship with your virtual clients, too.
Engaged customers are loyal, profitable and generate more revenue!
What plans do you have to improve your customer’s experience in your online store?
Do you have any secrets to share with us?
Sources:
Photo credits:
Trackbacks/Pingbacks