The goal of every business is to attract new customers while retaining existing ones to ensure it efficiently makes a profit. It goes without saying that this is not an easy task hence businesses are constantly looking for solutions to build a growing loyal customer base. And while there may be many ways to tackle this issue, one approach that we’ll be discussing today is by giving your consumers a personalized shopping experience.
According to Epsilon, recent studies show that 80% of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand that offers a personalized experience. But what exactly is a consumer personalized shopping experience? Personalization in e-commerce involves using collected data to treat every consumer as an individual and offer them products or services that are specifically tailored towards them. So here are some of the ways to start giving your consumers a more personalized shopping experience:
Incorporate Customer Profiles
With customer profiles, you may opt to integrate bits of personalization that may improve your visitor’s user experience. You can include a welcome banner on your website’s homepage when your visitors log in, you could address them by their name and title when sending out emails, or even filter products or services by availability in their country. Small things like these, at the very least, will be appreciated and improve the quality of your user’s browsing experience on your site.
Letting customers create personalized profiles on your site can go a long way for them and you as well. It portrays that you actually care about your customers, that want to engage with them individually, and that you want to give them the best possible experience. The information entrusted to you by your customers will definitely be helpful for your marketing department to determine the type of customers you are dealing with daily. With this, you can then start providing each visitor with products or services that meet their needs, interests, demographics, and even their goals.
Improve Search Results and Recommendations
We all have encountered a time when we were shopping online and couldn’t find what we were looking for. In an attempt to find a suitable alternative, we were only bombarded with completely unrelated suggestions that hindered us from getting what we were online to shop for in the first place. Better recommendations can only stem from understanding what your customer really needs. Think of the salesmen in stores that help you find what you’re looking for, provide suggestions based on a variety of factors, and even upsell complementary products before you check out. This is what you would want your site’s personalization to feel like despite being online.
Long gone are the days of simply recommending items based solely on similarity. By analyzing what users browse, you can get a better idea of what types of products they need, their preferences, what suits their budget, what complements the items they’re interested in, etc. This is why many businesses have even invested in artificial intelligence for a truly personalized experience. Though not everyone can afford solutions like this, keeping tabs on your visitors’ browsing history is certainly a way to start. Your goal is to gather data, analyze it appropriately, and revise your on-site search and recommendation algorithms to improve your site’s personalization.
Send Personalized Emails
We’ve already talked about how email marketing is one of the best marketing tools, but incorporating personalization could bring it to a whole new level. While it’s common to notify your customers and visitors of the current events and sales, you can personalize these emails further by notifying them when products they’ve expressed interest in go on sale. You can also notify them of items they’ve left in their cart that haven’t been checked out yet or offer discount codes on a product category based on past purchases and browsing history. Creating emails this way will not only bring higher chances of lead conversion but will also make your visitors feel how customer-driven your business is.
Diversify Your Customer Service
In most instances, businesses will only offer one method of communication for customer service which is through phone calls. Though effective, time and advancement in technology have blessed us with more personalized methods, creating an omnichannel service experience. These include communication via email, social media, face-to-face, or live chat. However, offering such a variety of channels means that you have to be available whenever and wherever your customers need you. Be quick to reply to their queries or respond to any suggestions they may have concerning your services.
Ask for Feedback and Reviews
Asking your customers to leave feedback and reviews will help build trust and purchase confidence. Getting feedback from your customers acts as a great method of listening and learning from your customers. Create an organized method through which your customers can leave their feedback and reviews for each product they purchase. You can use the information they leave to make their next shopping experience as personalized as possible.
Integrate a Self-Service Section
It is not always the case that a customer wants to interact with customer care. Some want to be able to find solutions to their concerns on their own. But how do you ensure that you do not lose such customers? You can develop a self-service section that provides information for customers which they can use to troubleshoot themselves. For this section, you can include FAQs, step-by-step solutions for common problems, and tutorial videos that customers can easily access.
Over to You
Work towards making your site better to offer your consumers a personalized shopping experience. But do keep in mind that your customers' tastes and preferences will grow and change over time. Thus, you need to keep yourself updated with their profiles to ensure that you are sending them relevant recommendations. Create a strategy that works both for you and your customers to enrich their customer experience and produce greater customer satisfaction. Ultimately, this will yield increased revenue for your business, long-term loyalty, and remaining market relevant.
