People online are becoming increasingly spoiled. And why shouldn’t they be? It’s your duty as an entrepreneur to provide them with a flawless user experience. And if you want to beat the competition, you have to stand out. The experience you provide to your customers has to be smoother and more engaging than that of your competitors.
Here are some tips that will help you out.
Keep a close eye on your metrics
Numbers don’t lie. They can sometimes disappoint, they can be harsh, but they can never lie. For instance, if you added a new page to your site with microinteractions that is supposed to drive sales and, after a few months of testing and tracking, you realize that absolutely nothing is happening, then something needs to change. You can try a different tactic, or you can delete that page altogether.
These tracking systems have become increasingly sophisticated – and you should use this to your advantage. Also, pay attention to which metrics you are tracking so as not to waste time and resources.
Expand the customer journey
Customers have grown accustomed to having an intuitive customer journey. Not long ago, a simple contact form would have sufficed, but nowadays, they want to see things moving around. They want everything to be colorful and beautiful, and most importantly, they want to have a small number of tasks at any given time.
So, for instance, let’s take the checkout procedure. Instead of having them fill up a ton of boxes in one go, divide this into a few steps, logically separated into categories. For example, first you ask for their name and address, then you ask for their payment information, then a confirmation page, then the checkout.
Lastly, you can add a list of similar products.
https://pixabay.com/en/social-media-faces-social-networks-550766/
Implement chatbots
AI and machine learning are on the rise and chatbots are growing in popularity. They cannot replace your customer service department completely, but they can certainly help speed up the process when it comes to communication.
What’s even better, users seem to respond well to chatbots that are properly set up. You shouldn’t try tricking your customers into thinking that they are in contact with a real person. Present your chatbot for what it is and, should the need arise, instruct your chatbot to move the conversation to a real customer service representative.
Use a Content Delivery Network
If the server you are hosting your website on is located on one part of the globe, and a user from another part of the globe wants to visit your site, they will have issues. That’s where a CDN kicks in. It’s basically a system of servers scattered across different continents which helps avoid the aforementioned mishaps.
If you have a WordPress website, which is most likely the case, there are many CDN solutions you can employ.
Expand your customer persona list
Customer personas are great for various reasons. They help with branding, UX and UI design, when setting up chatbots, etc. However, since the internet is constantly growing, so is the number of customer personas.
To elaborate, there are various nuances that have to be taken into consideration. For instance, earlier, one customer persona would be a single mom in her forties who works from home. Now, you can split this persona into two or more categories, depending on how tech-savvy she is, for example.
Get your customer persona list and try to think of ways to expand it to cater to the growing audience.
Finally, use a little empathy
Empathy has been lacking in business. CEOs literally viewed their customers as dollar bills walking around their stores. Of course, as things are changing all around, so is this. There are instances where small and medium businesses got more customers than big conglomerates, only because they showed little empathy.
Customers want to be seen as people, not numbers. Don’t forget this.
Final Words
Of course, there is so much more to say about this topic, but the tips mentioned above are certainly a good place to start. Building the best possible customer experience is a matter of trial and error. You should do your best to minimize these errors if you want to progress.