The Four Best Ways to Engage with Better CX

1. Speed

   It’s no secret that a fast site accelerates the customer experience. In 2012, Google found that online shoppers would be happy to wait five seconds for a site to load before they went to another site. Five seconds – that is a long time in today’s standards. According to a 2018 study from Google, 53 percent of mobile shoppers will wait three seconds before they left to another site. Optimising speed on your site will not only help reduce the dropoff of customer from the page, but it can also help lift conversion, increase visibility and help ease of use.

2. Transparency

   It’s awful when something goes wrong. Whether or not it was the fault of the business or the customer, it’s important to explain the situation to the consumer. One in three customers will never return to a company if they’ve had a bad experience. Although owning up t a mistake won’t stop that third from leaving entirely, you can help them understand that it won’t happen again. Examples of this include Vestiaire, who offer a refund to a customer when a technical issue occurred. Straight away, they told the customer what happened, apologised and instantly offered a refund. Ultimately, the customer was happy because the company was transparent. How do you know the customer was happy? Because I was the customer. Open and transparent customer service (within reason) is a great way to make sure the customer understands why certain steps are taken, what the options are and how to resolve any issues. The same applies to products that are out of stock, damaged, incorrect shipping prices, etc.

3. Offer Payment Flexibility

   Buy Now, Pay Later is no longer a fad, a gimmick or a novelty – it’s a serious platform that retailers can no longer look past. According to Power Retail Spotlight Series: BNPL those who use BNPL ‘tend to spend more, to buy more items, to shop more frequently and to be more loyal to retailers who provide it’. There are obviously pros and cons with this platform, as there is with everything. However, the Spotlight Series also found that ‘only 17 percent of retailers with BNPL had not seen any business improvement from it, but 57 percent had noticed an immediate improvement after implementing BNPL’.

4. Connect on a Personal Level

   Retailers never used to be seen as ‘friends’, there was a black and white divide between the customer and the retailer. But now, this line has significantly blurred, thanks to the likes of social media. Whether it be the Millennial culture or just a collapse of the stiff upper lip of retail, there is a far less concrete understanding of how a retailer should present itself in a public presence. Now social media managers can interact with customers, find out what they love, what they dislike and how they can improve. It’s not about being the customer’s friend, it’s about understanding what makes them click.

These are only a few small techniques, but if they’re added to a strategy, they can help increase conversions, loyalty and reduce abandonment.

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