3 ways e-commerce businesses can deliver a better customer experience

Recent research from Roy Morgan revealed that 44.2% of Australian aged over 14 bought one or more products online in any given four weeks. While this represents an enormous potential market, e-commerce businesses will also need to up their game in the face with increased competition both locally and internationally.  Without the direct face to face interaction a brick and mortar store has, online retailers will need to be smart on their communication process to deliver an equally positive experience. Here are 3 easy ways to do that.   

Personalisation is the key

For an online shop, personalisation can be the make or break for your business. For instance, 35% of Amazon’s sales come from personalised suggestions.  In fact, 52% of Australian consumers said that they’re likely to switch brands if a company doesn’t make an effort to personalise communications to them. A further 65% of consumers say that personalised or exclusive offers and discounts influence their loyalty (source).Yet 65% of retail marketers fail to personalize email copy (source). This provides a great opportunity to those retailers who can make use of data such as buying history to issue personalised suggestions or send out ‘stock up’ reminders on a previous purchase to increase brand loyalty. Using dynamic fields like first name when communicating with customers, or sending them coupons on their birthdays, also provide a personal touch.While many retailers are working towards delivering a seamless mobile experience, they seem to forget the most obvious tool — SMS. A report by Forrester research revealed that only 39% of digital businesses use SMS to engage their customers. Adding a mobile number field to your online forms to start communicating with your customer via text messages will really help you stand out from the crowd.Automating your communication workflow can save lots of your time and provide a more consistent experience. With services like Esendex’s SMS integration with Zapier and Magento, businesses can easily set up automated communication in minutes.   

Fulfilling customers’ expectations   

Research from Salesforce revealed that 64% of consumers expect companies to respond and interact with them in real time. That means businesses need to be more proactive in reaching out to their customers at every touch point of their journey – acknowledgement when an order is placed; confirmation when shipment is arranged and follow up when the product is delivered are the minimum communication points an online retail business should have with their customers. 53% of consumers now expect the estimated delivery time of their online purchase to be accurate and available within 3 hours of their order (Ipsos research). If your e-commerce store integrates with your email or SMS provider, adding this information field into your communication might be a quick and easy win to differentiate your service from the competitors.

Ensure staff are well informed too

With three quarters of consumers saying that they expect companies to provide a consistent experience wherever they engage with them (e.g., website, social media, mobile and in person), your internal communication process becomes as important as your communication with your customers.  But with an average of 97 business related emails delivered each day, SMS maybe a better option when communicating with staff members on important and time sensitive matters. For staff that are constantly on-the-go, an SMS including essential information for their follow up action will save them time and effort from logging in to different systems or calling the office for more details. Our platform integrates with different systems and can provide you the right solutions to streamline your communication process. Call us at 1300 764 946 to discuss further.