Their journey is now multi-channel, and depending on the sector, up to 80% of customers seek information online before buying. In this context, your digital device (website, mobile app, social networks...) must above all meet their expectations during the purchase preparation phase. However, in practice, very few brands respond to these expectations in a comprehensive manner... At the risk of missing out on a major tool for improving the customer experience, and therefore for turning leads into customers! Are you one of these brands? To enable you to check this quickly, we have drawn up a checklist of customer expectations that your digital device must absolutely meet.
1. Have clear product information
Your digital device must above all respond to the searches of Internet users preparing a purchase.
This is of course if they are searching for your brand or products, but also if they are searching more generically for the types of products you sell.
80% of internet users say they use the internet to find out information before buying a product or service... a score that reaches 87% in the Paris region and 92% among professionals and senior managers, according to a study carried out by Ifop in December 2014, entitled "The impact of e-reputation on the purchasing process".1
Consumers should be able to find rich and relevant information about the products or services they are interested in on your website and through your social media pages. Information that will help them make the right choice, online or in shop.
Most websites fulfil this "duty to inform" and present their products and services, but is this presentation useful and does it help in the act of buying? Is the product sheet really complete with a well thought out argumentation? Is the price of the product or service presented? If not, is there a link to a quote request? Can the visitor access information to help him/her make a decision (tests, consumer opinions, examples of use)? In the case of an e-commerce site, are the delivery and return conditions clearly indicated?
A few lines of presentation with a sales pitch and a standard photo are not enough. Today, one of the key points of the sales pitch is to accompany customers in the usethey will make of your products, to "inspire" them and make them want to project themselves in the benefits brought by their use.
In this respect, the "product sheet" on your merchant site is not the only possible medium: a YouTube channel broadcasting video tutorials (DIY, cooking, make-up, etc.), a dedicated thematic blog whose posts are relayed on social networks, or an image gallery on Pinterest can be a very effective complement!
Coupled with an efficient conversion tunnel and a well-marked pathway, information can therefore be spread over several media so as to accompany customers at each stage of their journey.
Discover our white paper CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE :
Why should your company take up the subject?
2. Contact customer service quickly
Having a contact to easily reach the customer service in case of a question or a problem, it seems obvious... and yet, it is sometimes an obstacle course on some websites! So much so that sometimes we wonder if this is not voluntary! However, this would be a very bad calculation on the part of the brands: it is not enough to "hide" the telephone number or the e-mail address of the after-sales service to avoid questions and other dissatisfactions. On the contrary, it is a recipe for customer impatience and annoyance!
Particularly today, in a context where the multiplicity of possible contact channels has made it essential for users and customers to have an easy and immediate way to contact a company.
"While online shoppers are attached to traditional means of contact, they still want choice in customer service" explains a CCM Benchmark / iAdvize study dated April 2015.2
E-shoppers particularly perceive the usefulness of real-time assistance methods to help them during critical phases of the purchasing process: problems at the payment stage, blocking at the identification stage or when filling in the order form.
Let's not forget: most often, when a customer visits a brand site, apart from wanting to buy / find out about a product, it is because they are looking for help. The first step in helping them is necessarily the frequently asked questions (FAQ), which, if well done, will avoid a number of calls to your customer service department.
Similarly, being able to download documentation on your products or access tutorials (video or not) will avoid a certain number of direct calls or solicitations on social networks.
Ideally, you should give the customer a choice about how to contact you, and specify this clearly, as for example IKEA or Michel et Augustin do on their contact pages.
Once you have these basics in place, you can offer a way to reach your customer service directly: e-mail, telephone, chat or social networks. Make the available channels immediately visible and easilyaccessible. Make it clear who will receive the email or who will pick up the phone. Confirm that a request has been received and how long it will take to process. In most cases, this "educational" speech is enough or goes a long way to lowering the tension level ofan unhappy customer!
Finally, do not neglect social networks. If you have a presence on Facebook or Twitter, make sure that the person in charge of these accounts (ideally your Community Manager), can quickly forward requests internally, according to an efficient and formalised process to allow a quick and relevant response, and a shared and "historicised" follow-up. You can also create a Facebook page or a Twitter account dedicated to after-sales service, so as not to mixengagement conversationswith customer service conversations.
3. Benefit from all services from a mobile phone
In 2016, offering a mobile-friendly version of your website has become an essential requirement. Why is this? Because 1 in 3 people worldwide now has a smartphone.
More importantly:
"Traffic from mobile devices has recently overtaken that of computers : today more than 50% of internet searches are made from a mobile device (smartphone or tablet).3
So your customers are searching for your products, viewing your site or your online content half the time from their personal phone!
And there is nothing more frustrating on a mobile device than a heavy and long website with tiny buttons that are impossible to click... It has therefore become difficult to do without a site adapted to consultation from a mobile device, all the more so for e-tailers.
Meeting this expectation means paying particular attention to the hierarchy of information, the image formats used, the time it takes to load pages and the possibility of carrying out key operations (such as online payment or downloading high value-added content) from a mobile phone.
Search engines (such as Google or Bing for example) now offer specific tools that allow you to quickly and easily test the compatibility of your website with mobile devices.
Not everyone has the possibility or the means to create a second version of their website specially adapted for consultation from a mobile device. The simplest, most effective and least expensive way is to design your main website in "responsive design": its content and presentation will automatically adapt to the device used.
You can also offer your customers a mobile application. This must have real added value compared to your website, and in particular provide solutions to customer needs in a mobile context. In order for it to be downloaded and used, your customer must also find an interest in using it regularly. If the service offered by your application is a "one shot" service, then it is better to set it up on your website in responsive design, by optimising the referencing of the page linked to this service.
4. Easily find the nearest point of sale
Your website, whether it is an e-commerce site or a showcase site, should serve as a bridge between your online presence and your physical presence.
Before making a purchase on the Internet, more than 77% of 18-24 year olds confide in evaluating or trying the product directly in a shop. The figure is even 79% among 25-34 year olds.1
Conversely, before making a purchase in a shop, 73% of the French people questioned consult consumer opinions online on blogs, forums or consumer sites.
In short, the physical point of sale and the website are more than ever linked and do not cannibalise each other.
It is therefore important to provide a list of your points of sale or, if you do not distribute your products yourself, the list of your distributors. Ideally and in the logic of presence and use in a mobile context, helping your customersto quickly locate the nearest point ofsale to their current location represents a real added value service.
You have probably already geolocated your shops on Google Maps. But today, beyond giving access to the complete and interactive map of your shops, it is also useful to be referenced by the numerous mobile applications allowing you toautomatically receive on your mobile the current promotions ofa shop when you are driving near it (Groupon City Deal), or to accumulate points/bonuses when entering a shop (Shopkick). Or compare prices for the same product in all the shops that sell it near your current location (Geocompare)!
5. Benefit from a personalised and, if possible, "enhanced" experience
When customer information is clear and structured, contact is simple, mobile navigation is optimised, and shop location is made easy, a major differentiator for your site will be theintegration of "personalised" features.
Acknowledging your customer when they arrive on the site by greeting them by their first name, or prioritising product offers in which they have already shown an interest, are all elements that allow you to re-create"proximity" online.
My FeelBack, for example, thanks a person by their first name and mentions their company name in its message posted after downloading one of its white papers.
You can also offer content that adapts to the profile and browsing history, send a personalised message with a specific promotion following a "shopping cart abandonment", or create areas reserved for "premium" customers, allowing them to access value-added content...
Or offer a "different experience" thanks to an original design and new messages, as Michel et Augustin's site does well, for example.
Or simply offer them the opportunity to subscribe to a thematic mailing list allowing them to receive key information in advance (e.g. the launch of season ticket sales for a football team).
Such features improve the user experience, allow you to further refine your performance and, above all, offer a strong and memorable emotional impact for your customers .
But before you consider deploying this last stage of the digital rocket, don't forget the fundamentals detailed in this article: to generate the "wow" effect by anticipating your customers' conscious expectations, you must first meet their first expectations on the essential points!
Was this article useful to you? Share it 🙂
- The impact of e-reputation on the purchasing process, IFOP, December 2014
- Online shopping behaviour and customer engagement, CCM Benchmark - IAdvize, April 2015
- Uses and expectations of the hyper-connected French, Google - IPSOS, 2015
