1) Introduction
Setting up an e-commerce business is not an easy task. The digital marketplace is getting more competitive every year, putting pressure on online sellers to stand out from the crowd. Making even small marketing mistakes can disturb e-commerce businesses' bottom line. If not taken care of, these mistakes can affect customer experience.
Therefore in this blog, we'll be discussing some common customer experience mistakes and their solutions to help you achieve your business goals.
2) Top 10 Customer Experience Mistakes
Based on our research, we have found the most common customer experience mistakes preventing online merchants scale their businesses. Check out these mistakes below:
2.1) Inappropriate website design
It's always said that the first impression is the last impression. Every customer first visits the website before buying products from an e-commerce store. An inadequately designed website shows that owners do not care about their businesses. Customers start making their opinions about a company when they visit its website or store. If the website looks poor, unreliable or cheap, they'll think the company is like that too. And they might not buy any product from your store.
Hence, your website should be reliable with relevant information so customers can understand what your company offers.
2.2) No social media presence
Social media is an interactive platform that enables people to share their ideas, information and interests with other people. We live in an era where customers are more likely to check the social media presence of e-commerce rather than their websites. They visit online sellers' social media handles whenever they have queries or concerns. If your social media presence is dead, your consumers will not be able to interact with you easily.
Therefore, every e-commerce company should maintain their social media presence. This will help them to grow their business and increase customer traffic on their websites. Also, they enjoy the opportunities that social networks offer for businesses.
2.3) Providing irrelevant information on competitors
Every customer compares e-commerce businesses with their competitors. They do this to find out how your company is special and different from other competitors. If you will not provide relevant information on your competitors, then customers might think that you haven't conducted any corresponding research.
Visitors are quite smart to carry out their own research. This is a strong reason why you should care. Online merchants should ensure that they provide relevant information to their customers. Share facts about your competitors to gain customers' trust.
2.4) Not providing flexible shipping options
Today's online shoppers are becoming more demanding. They want multiple delivery options at every phase of their shipping journey. They want to choose those services that satisfy their shipping needs. If e-commerce stores fail to provide what customers want, it's their problem that needs to be solved.
You can ask for customers' feedback to improve your serviceability. Add shipping options that are missing from your store. This will bring more customers and make them feel satisfied. Let customers help you to develop your business. Give your 100% to meet their expectations.
2.5) Poor customer service
Better customer care service helps to earn customers' trust and support. Every employee of an e-commerce company should interact with customers at every stage of their shipping journey. Customer interaction can affect your business's reputation. A negative customer experience can lead to the loss of trusted customers.
To provide excellent customer care service, every employee should share their contact details on the websites. Seeing this, customers can expect responsive and supportive service from the company. Online sellers should train their staff to provide customer support so they don't lose customers.
2.6) Unsatisfactory navigation
With categories and design, good navigation is important to help customers find the products they want. If your website has all the shipping details and products, but they are not arranged systematically, visitors may face difficulty to find their products. Poor navigation may result in reduced customer traffic on your website.
Online merchants should design their websites in such a way that it has a menu bar or search bar. Using this, customers can easily find every shipping option or product they want.
2.7) Frequent pop-ups on the screen
Many e-commerce stores introduce pop-ups on their websites. These pop-ups appear when visitors visit your website to search for a specific product. Not only do they appear, but ask them to fill in their personal details and switch to email inbox for confirmation. These pop-ups annoy and distract customers from what they came for.
E-commerce retailers should not introduce pop-ups on their websites and ask customers to join their mailing lists. Adding pop-ups is not a good idea to make your visitors stay on the website. Instead, you can add a link to the opt-in page or include an opt-in check box for order confirmation.
2.8) Not providing steady shopping carts
It happens when customers search for products, add them to shopping carts and leave them to find additional products. Customers might also close the browser before returning to make other purchases. These situations often lead to losing what they have chosen or added to their shopping carts.
Hence, to solve this issue, online merchants should acquire better practices to make their shopping carts persistent. They should include a Wishlist or Save option so customers do not lose what they select.
2.9) Excessive follow-ups
No matter how satisfactory the customer experience you offer, sending excessive follow-up notifications may irritate customers. Sending too many text messages or email newsletters annoys them and pushes them to leave the website.
E-commerce businesses should respect their customers' time and not send excessive follow-ups. They should ensure that these notifications do not disturb their customers.
2.10) Not providing adequate payment options
In this techno-savvy world, every customer wants services that instantly fulfil their needs. With shipping options, customers also ask for payment options. The lack of payment options acts as a barrier for customers. No consumer is interested in opening a new account every time for payment purposes.
This problem can be solved by providing various payment options such as COD or online payment. Online merchants should go through customers' feedback to know what they want.
3) Tips to Improve Customer Experience
A remarkable customer experience helps e-commerce retailers to scale their businesses and retain customers. People only buy products from those e-commerce companies which provide positive pre and post-purchase experiences. Good customer care service alone cannot create an excellent customer experience. Online sellers have to follow some practices to make their customers happy and stay.
In this section, we'll share some tips that will help you to improve your customer experience.
3.1) Add customer feedback option
Every e-commerce store should provide customer feedback options to their customers. Feedback from customers guides online retailers to drive impactful changes in their businesses and improve customer experience. They can ask customers for feedback through various methods. These include social media, surveys, feedback on the website or email contact forms. With negative and positive feedback, online merchants can adapt several ways to enhance customer experience.
3.2) Provide effective customer-centric solutions
Most customers need their issues to be solved as quickly as possible. E-commerce stores should offer customer-centric solutions that reduce customer efforts. A customer feels satisfied when their problems are resolved by reducing the amount of their effort.
3.3) Focus on interactions
As technology is getting advanced, online retailers choose to interact with customers technically and not manually. A memorable customer experience relies on customer-to-employee interactions. Hence, e-commerce companies should not rely on automation or technology to interact with their customers. They should talk to them face-to-face so they can know what their customers want.
3.4) Appreciate your customers
Online sellers should appreciate their customers. This shows that they care about their customers' money, effort and time. Expressing gratitude to consumers improve employee and customer satisfaction. You can appreciate your customers by providing them with thank-you notes, discounts or through direct conversations. This method helps e-commerce stores improve customer experience and build strong relationships.
3.5) Be responsive
Customers get frustrated when they have to wait for a long to get responses from online merchants. Customers' unresolved issues lead to negative customer experiences. Hence, e-commerce companies should be responsive and reach their customers to solve their issues. If customers get quick responses, they will be satisfied with your services.
4) How ClickPost ensures a better customer experience?
ClickPost is a SaaS-based logistics company whose services help e-commerce businesses to streamline the shipment process. With shipping services, it also provides customer care services which improve customer experience. ClickPost's customer support team help customers to solve their shipping related-issues. The company is responsive and offers customer-centric solutions. ClickPost's well-designed website navigates customers and users to find the products they want. It provides real-time tracking updates on customers' orders via WhatsApp, email or SMS. The company's onboarding team organize a meeting on short notice to help e-commerce companies to provide an end-to-end post-purchase customer experience.
5) Conclusion
Customer experience blunders can tank e-commerce businesses. These mistakes result in the loss of loyal customers. Online sellers are advised to work on customer experience mistakes. Improving pre and post-purchase customer experience will enable you to scale your business globally. We hope this blog will help you analyse customer experience mistakes and improve them.