Customer Experience 5 brilliant ways to engage your customers in a post-pandemic world Last updated on October 4th, 2022 March 2022, marks the 2 year anniversary of our first lockdown in the UK. We wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on the impact the pandemic has had on the way we shop. Here are our top five recommendations to make your ecommerce experience a joy for your customers. Personalised or filtered reviews An example of how reviews could be filtered and personalised on allbirds using Yotpo reviews plugin Whilst working from home many customers found themselves with more time to browse and compare products before committing to a purchase. Detailed, relevant reviews is a great way to support your customers’ decisions. ACTION: Ensure all of your bestselling products have a good variety of reviews. If your products are sized, it’s helpful to include the reviewer’s size to help other customers to find reviews relevant to them. The customer journey no longer ends at the checkout Our client, Jing Tea, make their delivery cost & timeframe immediately available to their customers to reduce friction in sales. 90% of customers expect their online orders delivered in 2-3 days, according to a 2021 study by McKinsey. During the pandemic, customers got used to same-day delivery from large retailers such as Amazon. This increased their expectations for speedy delivery. With physical retail shops closed, many businesses had to quickly improve their online returns to keep up with consumer demand. It suddenly became very important to deliver customers a quick, seamless service from purchase through to delivery and returns (which account for 25% of orders on average, McKinsey 2021). This is why we’ve worked on a lot of projects this year focused on improving the customer experience of delivery and returns. ACTION: If you haven’t already done so, make time to map out the customer journey from purchase, post-purchase updates, delivery to returns. Highlight any pain points that your customers currently have by speaking to your customer service team or, even better, the customers themselves. Ideally, consider using NPS for an ongoing, inexpensive and more precise analysis of customer pain points. Once you have a frictionless journey in place make sure you highlight it across your website. This reassures customers as they complete their transaction knowing all the details: when their order will be delivered, how much it will cost and how easy it is to return if they need to. Don’t forget to collect data on returns which can be invaluable feedback for improving future product lines. Is there a different way to showcase your products? A customer skateboard builder we created for Skatehut has been a huge hit We’ve had a lot of fun this year thinking about innovative ways to show products that delight and encourage customers to make a purchase. Huge advances in AI and video optimisation have this all possible. As many retailers lost the ability to showcase their products in physical retail stores, they had to build new ways for customers to experience their products. ACTION: Consider if there are other ways you can showcase your products beyond the traditional product image gallery. Could you incorporate short, embedded product videos into the image gallery to bring products to life? Would 3D or 360 images help to inspire your customers? Perhaps you could offer custom/personalised products using a product builder? Offer your customers a personal assistant in their pocket An example of how Burberry are using Hero’s innovative chat to connect with their customers Something else we’ve noticed in the past two years is that customers are seeking authentic, informative and on-demand customer service. We’ve worked with our clients on some exciting new integrations such as Hero to allow them to speak to their customers when they want and where they want; be it via live chat on the website, via a video call with a customer advisor or directly via Whatsapp to continue the conversation when convenient. ACTION: Review how your customers interact with your customer service team when they need a bit of guidance. Is there more you can do to make this experience more convenient and appropriate for their needs? Interactive size guides The Size & Tog Selector we’ve built for Tommee Tippee to allow their customers to find the correct fit for their baby as quickly as possible Without physical shops to try clothes on, retailers had to quickly re-think their online size guides to reduce the economic impact of returns. For fashion, a quarter of shoppers are returning over 30% of what they buy1. And there are signs that this is growing with a quarter of retailers reporting rises in return rates2 ACTION: If you sell sized products consider if there are ways you can help customers find the right fit for them the first time. Review your returns data to see how many returns are based on size or incorrect fit. Footnotes IMRG, The return Conundrum. Full Report Barclaycard. Press release
