10 Methods to improve e-commerce customer experience

e-commerce customer

Like any other business, e-commerce also needs outstanding customer service to stay on the top of the business-to-business e-commerce market. First, we need to learn what e-commerce customer experience is, why providing an effective and hassle-free e-commerce customer experience is important, and how can e-commerce improve its customer service?

E-commerce and e-business have entirely transformed the retail world as more customers look forward to convenience, competitive pricing, variety and most of all, excellent business to business e-commerce customer support. The impact of e-commerce business has reached a level that it is expected that e-commerce sales will hit a whopping five trillion dollars in the coming year. This means that building an e-commerce business is becoming more and more popular these days, and this colossal transformation of traditional retail is not going anywhere any sooner.

What is customer experience in the business-to-business e-commerce?

We all have an idea of what B2B or business to business e-commerce actually is. It simply describes online sales between companies. Coming back to the topic, customer experience in e-commerce and e-business is just your customers’ reviews of how your e-business treats them. The way your customer would feel will directly affect your customer’s behaviour and their loyalty to your brand. Therefore, offering excellent e-commerce customer service is essential in businesses and is gradually becoming necessary.

Why is customer service important in e-commerce and e-business?

Well, e-commerce customer support is simply how you retain your existing customers and win more simultaneously. A great business to business e-commerce customer service helps gain more customers in the form of companies. Eventually, these satisfied businesses would turn into your most loyal brand ambassadors. The impact of e-business customer experience would lead you towards the following improvements:

· Customer loyalty

· Customer retention

· Referrals

· Brand equity

· Revenue and growth

· Customer lifetime value

How can business to business e-commerce improve its customer experience?

It should come as no surprise that individuals and businesses buy brands instead of products as your e-commerce customers. Therefore, your e-commerce customer service needs to be top-notch, offering an all-rounder fantastic experience. We have brought together a few methods to help your e-commerce and e-business improve customer service.

Audit your e-business with deep research.

To offer excellent e-commerce customer support to your existing and potential individual and business to business e-commerce customers, it is crucial to question your business with the following queries.

· Is my e-business website appealing enough to attract customers?

· Is my e-commerce website user-friendly?

· How easy it is to look for a specific product or service on my e-commerce website?

· Do all the website pages and content load timely?

· What is the readability score of my e-commerce and e-business websites?

· Is my e-commerce customer support good enough to assist the customers precisely?

· Is my e-commerce customer service enjoyable?

Finding the detailed answers to these questions requires thorough research on your own e-commerce business. It will give you a rough idea of where you stand on the e-commerce customer experience quality scale.

Build a user-friendly e-commerce and e-business website.

Your customers need an easy to navigate e-commerce website that loads in time and provide exactly what they look for. Therefore, it is rightly said that your e-commerce website can either grow or simply destroy your e-commerce business to business customers. Make your buttons and links bold enough to be visible. Use fonts, colors, and backgrounds carefully. Your e-commerce website would be considered user-friendly if it consists of the following features:

· A fast loading speeds

· Easy navigation

· Simple product categorization

· Advanced product filter options

Provide assistance across all social media platforms.

Regardless of your target market, today’s e-commerce and e-business customers are used to communications across social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, etc. Take full advantage of your e-commerce customer experience by integrating social media in your e-business to engage your audience. This is also a cost-effective marketing solution that provides instant assistance to your customers rather than keeping them waiting by issuing tickets or calling e-commerce customer support.

Add some customization to your e-commerce business.

Offering your customers some kind of customization in e-commerce buying can instantly improve your online business. As you know, all business-to-business e-commerce customers are different, so you must provide a clear and crisp call to action, directly leading them to the website page they can relate to. Also, keep a friendly e-commerce customer support tone on all your website pages so that your customers always feel welcomed and valued. Including this personal touch in your e-commerce and e-business website is a must-have.

Include a customer review section.

Adding customer reviews to your e-business website is a great idea to inform business to business e-commerce customers about your best-selling products of good quality and performance. Potential customers would read product reviews on your website and decide to buy from you instantly if the reviews are good. People appreciate reviews from real customers who purchased the products before and used them. Therefore, ensure that your e-commerce and e-business website displays customer reviews clear enough for your potential customers to read and get convinced to buy from your online store.

Optimize a mobile-friendly e-commerce store.

According to research, e-commerce sales through smartphones would skyrocket to 55% in the current year. Your e-commerce customer experience via mobile phones would be seamlessly effortless. Therefore, building a responsive e-commerce website for your business-to-business e-commerce customers is essential. Here are a few tips to optimize your online e-commerce store for smartphones and devices:

· Build a responsive mobile version of your e-business website.

· Do not over-complicate the website by adding too much content.

· Balance the whitespace and make your font readable.

· Work on the load speed, as most customers tend to exit the browser if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.

Improve the business-to-business e-commerce customer service.

Like traditional businesses, e-commerce and e-businesses should offer excellent customer service to their business-to-business e-commerce customers. Especially on the website pages specifically for customers only, like the checkout page or confirmation emails. You don’t need to interact with your customers personally in customer service. However, you should provide all the required contact information on your e-commerce website, giving your customers a way to be in touch with you if any issue arises. Your FAQ section on the website must be clear and straightforward. Do not load your customers with unnecessary information. It could leave a negative impact on your e-commerce customer support.

Use compelling e-commerce website content.

The content on your e-commerce website can be used to build and attract your target audience. It can be a resource that your customers can use if they need expert advice on a topic. Due to this reason, your e-commerce business’s existing and potential customers keep on coming back to your website. Therefore, your content should be engaging and compelling enough to retain your customers and be published as frequently as possible.

Follow up religiously.

After your business-to-business e-commerce website makes a sale, you should follow up with your customers for their feedback and check if their e-commerce customer experience went smoothly. However, following up with your customers does not only mean getting their feedback, but you can also send them promotional offers and discounts on future purchases. Doing this would positively affect your e-commerce customer service and make your customers feel remembered and valued.

Minimize any hassle in the checkout process.

Building an e-commerce business depends on how simple you keep each process. Thus, developing a convenient checkout process is an excellent way of reducing abandoned carts. Hence, integrate a simple checkout process on your website to offer your customers a seamless e-commerce customer experience. The shopping cart should be seen on every page of your e-business website, and the payment process must be secure and straightforward, including all kinds of payment options. Most customers abandon their shopping carts if they do not find their preferred payment method on a website.

Offer a clear return policy.

The biggest challenge of buying from an online e-commerce store is that customers do not know the quality of the products being sold. Therefore, offering a clear return policy to your customers is essential if they dislike the product. This would help your customers build their trust in your brand, thus adding value to their e-commerce customer experience with your company. They would appreciate that your e-commerce business values its customers over profits.

Summary

The role of e-commerce in business is increasing in popularity every single day. Therefore, the part that e-commerce customer services play to deliver a positive e-commerce customer experience help your customers greatly in self-serving their own needs. While improving your e-commerce customer service and retaining your existing and potential customers through that is itself a huge benefit, these improvements can also lead to more cost-savings and revenue returns. It also saved a significant amount of time. For example, fewer customer complaints would lead to lesser emails, calls, or texts received, thus taking less time to respond. Hence offering a unique e-commerce customer experience is a win-win situation for all!