20 Customer Experience Tips to Implement This Holiday Season


Black Friday in neon; Text: Black Friday / Cyber Monday Content

 

The holidays are the busiest time of year for ecommerce and when providing a great customer experience is of utmost importance (and at times the most challenging). Keep reading for some great customer experience tips and refreshers as we enter this holiday season and beyond.

 

1. Simplicity 

The best customer experiences are the most simple. Simplify the process for your customers by removing any barriers your customer goes through before they check out. Accomplish by providing a personalized shopping experience with Personalized Search and Merchandising, upselling, cross-selling, and geographical recommendations. Keep the shopper experience simple for higher customer satisfaction and better conversion rates. 

S I M P L E in Scrabble tiles

2. Human Connection

Human connection is at the heart of every digital interaction. Customers have desires, feelings, and opinions. They want to feel heard and understood. Communicate with customers and get to know them. Cater to who they are as a person before breaking down data to fuel the tactics for success.

Woman sitting on couch with open MacBook

3. Customer Mindset

One of the best customer experience tips we can give you is to put yourself in their shoes. How would you search on your site? What would you like to see as you search? Would you want to see new products first, best rated, top sellers, or A-Z for each category? Once you work through these questions, optimize your site this way. Each category or top search should be set up in the most useful way for shoppers to find what they need.

customer mindset - "audience" written on whiteboard with black marker

4. Educate

Use tools like inline banners to educate customers on what sets you apart from the competition. Once customers understand your value, you create a loyal customer base. With an influx of visitors to your site during the holiday season, it’s the perfect time to remind your customers why they buy from you (and why they should continue to buy from you).

this must be the place - neon sign

5. Front and Center

Search is often the first place most customers go on an ecommerce site and is one of the most used functions on a site. According to AddSearch, 30% of website users utilize search when it is offered on a site. Research proves that users of site search buy more. Make sure the search on your site is unmissable.

magnifying glass

6. Make Products More Findable

If you want customers to buy, they need to be able to easily find what they are looking for. Focus on making search more granular and you’ll be creating a loyal fanbase while watching your conversions soar.

work session brainstorm - two men writing on glass

7. Don’t Underestimate Site Search

We’ve said it before and we’ll keep saying it; Search. Is. King. Convert more by understanding shoppers’ intent on finding the product. With a robust site search using solutions such as predictive text, you will create an unforgettable customer experience.

person searching online

8. Guide Shoppers 

By utilizing popular keywords, categories, product names, and blog articles you will help guide customers to the right products quickly. Having a well-designed autocomplete helps get shoppers on the right product discovery track faster.

SEO in colorful blocks

9. Optimize Search, Spelling & Synonyms

Account for user errors such as misspellings and synonyms. What’s a toboggan to one person is a sled or a hat to another. Optimize your site search to help customers have a great shopper experience and find the right products.

yellow couch - product on computer screen sitting next to coffee mug, iphone, mouse, books, and pens

10. Get Trendy

Get higher conversion rates and reinforce authority by embracing trends. Present unique trend propositions and create an aspirational journey for your online shopper.

trendy jeans - skinny, jeggingg

11. Test What Works

Not everything will work. But the good news is that you can find out what does and make a plan around it. Look for tools that will assist in creating and testing rules to boost and merchandise the right products for your customers throughout your ecommerce site. Adjust your strategy based on what customers are responding to and provide the optimal customer experience. 

data and graphs on a screen

12. A Beginner’s Mindset

Start at the very beginning: onboarding. It may sound a little strange to onboard a customer, but it is best practice to assume visitors don’t know anything about you or what you’re selling. Make them feel welcome and more comfortable with your product through articles and guides that help them through the buying process. Help them make an informed purchase and they’ll checkout feeling confident – not only with what they purchased but also with your online store.

man wearing headphones sitting at macbook

13. Your Best Foot Forward

It may seem like an obvious customer experience tip to to put your “best” products at the top of your results, but “best” is subjective. However, bestsellers are a proven conversion driver. Use Boost Rules to automate merchandising of best sellers to the top of results as it serves both your business and the customer journey.

white sweatshirts hanging up

14. The Best of Both Worlds

Keep it simple for your customers AND for you. Let technology do the heavy lifting by automating time-consuming merchandising; without losing the control to manually curate results when new collections launch.

person holding up red old-school clock on blue background

15. More Time Together

It’s a fact that customers who spend more time on your ecommerce site have higher conversion rates. Get them to stay on your site longer with tools such as banners on search results pages and personal recommendations.   

online shopper with computer and credit card

16. Don’t Just Discount 

Yes, price matters, but there’s a bigger reason online shoppers stay on your site and buy more. Create messaging pointing customers to services provided such as customer support. Customers value great service. Provide it and show how you stand out in the crowded ecommerce space.

customer support woman

17. Give the Customer Control

When optimizing your site and merchandising, think of the customer’s journey through the site and give them control over how results are served. Make the process clean and easy through filtering, sorting options, and personalization. Giving your customer control to personalize search results speeds up product discoverability and boosts conversion rates.

man and woman christmas shopping online

18. Personalized Recommendations

Machine-learning-based personalization can quickly help you create a more relevant CX at scale. By using personalized recommendations across your online store, you can create a tailored customer experience based on your previous engagement, searches, purchase history, and even price sensitivity.

shopping cart and computer

19. Personalized for You

Up your game through the use of personalization tools such as “You May Also Like” on product detail pages. Use data and reporting to find out more about your customer’s viewing and shopping habits to provide a one-of-a-kind shopping experience.

man in red shirt and red glasses with a big smile

20. Be Memorable

You’re not just selling a product, you’re selling an experience. Be memorable and provide a great customer experience by anticipating their wants and needs and making the entire process as seamless as possible.

two women online shopping while laying on a bed

 

 

By creating a great customer experience, you create customers for life. This holiday season may be the first time someone visits your ecommerce store, but it doesn’t have to be the last. Provide customers with memorable, simple, personalized experiences while also providing great service and they’ll become one of your raving fans. 

Reach out to us to chat more about implementing these customer experience tips and start providing an even better shopper experience.

 

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