The Importance of Customer Experience on Your Website

In a post-pandemic world, where e-commerce and online shopping are the new normal, your website “customer experience” may be the difference between success and failure.

Customer experience can be defined as the sum of all experiences your customers have with your brand or business - from interacting with your social media, advertising, website, and other channels to the selection and purchasing of products and services, to the checkout, shipping, billing and customer support.

Oracle found that customer experience can be extremely important with 89 percent saying they switched brands due to poor customer experience, and 86 percent saying they would pay more for great customer experience.

Business leaders have taken note with 81 percent surveyed by Gartner believing that customer experience, and not product or price, will soon be the key differentiator.

The Oracle study found that, “maximizing customer satisfaction across the buyer journey increases total customer satisfaction by 20 percent and drives revenue growth by up to 15 percent.”

A good customer experience will entice customers to purchase again, and a memorable customer experience will increase the chances that your customer will not only become loyal to your brand, but will sing your praises to family, friends, colleagues and neighbors.

Even before the pandemic, your website and online customer experience were paramount, with 89 percent of customers beginning their buying process with a search online.

What Your Customers Expect

You cannot deliver a memorable customer experience without knowing what customers expect.

Oracle, breaks down the “modern customer” into seven traits:

1. Customers want control of their experience. Your website should provide enough tools to research and explore your products and services.
2. Customers are connected 24/7 and they expect your company to be available at all hours to answer questions and provide help.
3. Customers want personal interactions. Live chat and help/support functions are key.
4. Customers want access to your brand across multiple channels. It is not good enough to be mobile-friendly, but your website should be mobile-first. Statista found that 40 million Americans are mobile-only internet users .
5. Customers trust word of mouth and reviews. Link to third-party sources to help customers make their decisions.
6. Customers want it now! InsideSales.com found that web leads are nine times more likely to convert if they are followed up on in less than five minutes.
7. Customers have opinions and are willing to share their experiences with others. Some of your best customer experience feedback will come via social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Brand Websites That Deliver

We tend to focus on the e-commerce aspect of customer experience, but memorable customer experience includes all interactions that lead to purchase decisions.

Is your website optimized for customer experience, including:

• Fast Load Times
• AI-backed Search
• Product Demos
• Detailed FAQ
• One-click Checkout
• Live Chat
• Videos and Strong Visuals
• Links to Price Quotes

Three brands that get it right:

Sephora: Wealth of information at the customers fingertips including easy links to points program, stores and services, community, and holiday shipping information. Ratings and reviews are visible on each product page.

DAVIDsTEA: Opposite of Sephora’s homepage visually, which is loaded with many photos, this website sets the tone with a large cover photo and special offer that has us smelling and tasting the holidays. Inside, this website is chock full of stunning visuals.

Sony: This website makes a great use of videos to help the customer find the right Sony solution for gift giving. Also, a poll on the landing page helps define customer wants.

The Difference Between CX and UX

Customer Experience or CX is different from User Experience or UX.

According to HubSpot, “User experience is a subset of customer experience. It revolves around your products. It’s all about how your customers interact with your products and what experience they have with them.”

Basically, UX is a subset of CX and it is possible to have a poor UX and maintain a positive CX.

Some of the most memorable customer experiences happen when a product or service does not work as expected and the company response makes you a stronger believer in their brand.

Need help with your website? Contact adWhite today to make sure your business has all the right tools to offer a memorable customer experience.