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Customers today want things to be easier and more convenient than ever. When you can buy almost anything to be delivered within the hour, it makes sense that people are looking for flexibility and convenience in all of their interactions with businesses. This presents a huge challenge for many businesses, especially smaller businesses that might struggle to provide the services of a larger corporation. But even if you’re not able to operate like Amazon, there are still things you can do to offer the flexibility and convenience your customers are looking for.
With some smart strategies, you can make sure the whole shopping and purchase process is set up to make your customers happy. Keep reading to find out more about how you can make it happen.
Ensure Responsive Design
When people are shopping online, the customer experience is everything. It’s less based on the atmosphere of a physical location or helpfulness of the staff, and more on whether they’re able to successfully find what they’re looking for and complete their purchase. One of the most important things to pay attention to is responsive design. Your website needs to adjust to different devices and browsers, ensuring your customers get a good experience, no matter what they’re using. Many people abandon smartphone or tablet purchases because the process isn’t set up to respond to making purchases on these devices.
Make It Easier to Find Stuff
With an online store, there’s no member of staff to show people around. Customers need to be able to find what they’re looking for on their own. This means it’s essential to organize your products in a sensible way, and to offer filtering and search functions. Customers should be able to type what they’re looking for into a search bar and have suitable options come up. Think about the best ways to categorize products and what features customers might want to filter by, including size, color, technical specifications, or anything else that might matter to them.
Offer Flexible Delivery and Returns
It’s common for a customer to check out the shipping and returns policy before they decide whether to make a purchase. If they’re not offered suitable options, they’re likely to go elsewhere for what they need. Offering flexible options can allow people to choose something that suits their budget and can fit in with their needs. They might include different choices for delivery days and times. Slower delivery could provide a budget option, while faster delivery costs more but provides more convenience. Consider your returns policy carefully too. Your customers want to be able to make returns easily if necessary.
Reduce Steps to Payment
Too many steps on the way to completing a purchase can put people off. By simplifying it, you speed things up and increase the convenience for your customers. Start by offering the option of checking out as a guest, ensuring no one has to set up an account to make a purchase. Try to keep your steps to as few pages or tabs as necessary, without overwhelming the customer with too many things at once. Of course, it’s also important to ensure your website and payment gateway are speedy so they don’t slow anyone down.
Provide Multiple Payment Options
Payment is the last step before your customer’s order is complete. And yet, they can reach this stage and still decide to abandon their purchase if it’s not convenient. Offering flexible payment options keeps your customers happy. To do this, you need to ensure you have the right tools such as the payment solutions from merchant service provider North. With the right payment options, you can even take payments both online and offline. Secure online payments should be fast and convenient so your customers can pay quickly while knowing that their payment details are safe.
Deliver Multiple Assistance Channels
It’s also essential to think about how your customers can conveniently get the help they need. This should involve giving your customers several ways to access information, seek help, and have their questions answered. These could include multiple channels, such as email, live chat, or phone help. Another way to offer convenience is to have self-service options, including a knowledge library or a community forum where people can find answers to their questions. These options allow them to look up the answers they need at any time without having to wait for a response.
Offering more convenience and flexibility to customers can encourage them to complete their purchases and to keep coming back, turning them into loyal customers in the long term.
