Optimising your customer’s experience does so much more than drive sales. It’s a great opportunity to add value for your customers, build relationships and grow your business!
So often there’s a real missed opportunity throughout the customer’s experience. Ensuring you’re easy to find online – and offline, keeping stock levels up to date, clearly communicating (and updating) your business’ contact details, managing expectations about response turnaround and delivery timings, and making payment as easy as possible all go a long way, but there are so many more opportunities.
Consider how many consumer touchpoints people have with your business, from initial search to consideration to purchase, and after sales service and follow ups. There are always opportunities to make choosing, ordering and booking or buying products easier, bring your brand to life through your approach, language and tone, and convert happy customers to brand ambassadors (and long-term customers).
Here are our top 5 tips which will increase your sales conversion and improve your brand experience:
1. Know your customer
Understand who is searching for, buying and using your products or services, whether it’s one person, or someone purchasing or ordering for others. Identify your target consumer – the more specific the better – and design the customer experience with them firmly in mind;
2. Map the customer journey
Take a fresh look at your business through a consumer’s lens, or ask someone to do it for you. Capture each step from viewing your site in search engines, to how and where you appear in social media search to Google reviews. It doesn’t have to be fancy or complicated, just create a step by step map of how consumers interact with your business in terms of the process, directions, visuals and language. You’ll start to see inconsistencies, gaps and opportunities in a new way!
3. Consider where you can add value, streamline and personalise the process.
Add your personal voice, consistent brand imagery, and create a personal connection with each of your customers throughout the process… think about how you can take steps out, automate key elements, and convert people from interest to consideration to action… and then ambassadors via user generated content, reviews and recommending friends.
4. Review and optimise the online experience
You may not gain new shoppers through the checkout process but you can certainly lose them. Seamlessly integrating the online and offline experience is crucial – make sure automated confirmation and delivery emails are well formatted, branded and clearly communicate key timing and provide contact details. Including a personal touch and ensuring that your online and offline experience (signage, packaging, website, EDMs) is consistent goes a very long way – and is so often missed!
5. Add value to your customer’s lives in every way you can!
Simple to open and easy to recycle or compost packaging, a waiting room which creates some time out or tips to keep your physio experience, new haircut or flowers lasting longer, a booking system synced to your availability and their calendar, and of course the entire experience designed for mobiles.
By following these simple steps and putting yourself in your customer’s shoes (whether they’re sparkly, pool-side or corporate), you’ll increase customer satisfaction, build loyalty and drive profitable, sustainable business growth.
