With close to 386 billion U.S. dollars in sales, Amazon is the leading e-retailer in the United States. If we were to guess what makes them successful, we’d say it’s the ease with which they let shoppers find, purchase, receive, and return products.
Sure, Amazon has every imaginable (and unimaginable) product you can think of, which makes it a go-to source for customers, but if they didn’t make their user and customer experience seamless, a lot fewer people would be shopping there.
If you have only vaguely heard of CX and UX before, there’s never been a better time to acquaint yourself with these practices. This beginner’s guide explains how UX and CX drive success for eCommerce businesses.
What is CX?
CX stands for “customer experience.” It’s how your customers feel when interacting with your company at every touchpoint.
From the moment someone first learns of your brand, to the moment they make a purchase, to their post-purchase interaction, your business is constantly delivering a customer experience. It is imperative that you deliver an excellent one.
How can you ensure your eCommerce business delivers excellent CX?
There are a few things to keep in mind when planning a flawless customer experience, including:
- How aligned your brand and product messaging is. (Is your messaging connected from one platform to another? If a customer clicks on a paid or organic post, do they get taken forward on their journey, or is the experience disjointed?)
- Is your messaging providing value to your customer? If they are looking for ways to improve their hair texture and your messaging is selling hair color, you are not providing relevant value.
- What information are you providing to the customer when they land on any of your channels?
- How is a customer’s post-purchase experience? Is it easy for them to get in touch with a representative should they have questions?
Understanding your audience’s online and offline behavior, their pain points, and how your product satisfies their needs, is essential to developing a customer experience that keeps people coming back to your website. Agencies offering eCommerce SEO services are adept at researching your audience’s needs, creating content that satiates those needs, and ensuring that content gets seen by people.
Not only should your eCommerce SEO agency be able to create new content that serves your customer’s experience, but it should also optimize existing content based on research. However, not all aspects of CX are under the purview of your eCommerce SEO agency. For example, you may decide to keep post-purchase customer service internal or outsource it to a customer service company.
While an eCommerce SEO agency doesn’t own your brand’s CX, it plays an integral role in being your partner as you plan to design it.
Why is CX important for eCommerce businesses?
Simply put, it is not enough to only have a good product. If your customer has to jump through hoops to get to it, they aren’t going to try! They will not want to engage with you if they come across a negative sentiment about your product or service.
Imagine walking into a store where the salesperson seems distracted and doesn’t help answer your questions. You will definitely not want to spend your time or money there. It’s the same for your eCommerce business.
A solid CX strategy helps your eCommerce business:
- Attract new customers
- Retain old customers
- Enjoy the benefits of brand advocacy
- Differentiate itself from competitors
What is a CX strategy?
At its core, a CX strategy creates a step-by-step playbook for actualizing, delivering, and gauging your business’s progress for customer-facing goals. While creating your strategy, consider what kind of experience you want customers to have while using your site. Then, use your answer to inform your strategy’s goals and steps you need to take to get the results you desire.
Your CX strategy should:
- Guide your business’s investments and actions
- Stem from your company’s mission
- Bridge the gap between what customers expect and what you can deliver
Let’s explore these individually.
Guide your business’s investments and actions
When you have a solid plan in place, it’s easier to feel at ease. The same principle applies to CX strategies.
When you understand what’s most important for your customers’ shopping experience, you know what actions and investments to prioritize over others. The right CX strategy imbues your actions and investments with a sense of purpose.
Stem from your company’s mission
When you first started your business, what did you hope to achieve for your customers? Whatever that was, infuse it into your CX strategy.
For instance, if you originally set out to empower your customers, your CX strategy may include a customer engagement overhaul. Ask yourself how every component of your CX strategy supports your customer-centric mission.
Bridge the gap between what customers expect and what you can deliver
Do you know what your customers expect when they interact with your site? Do you know how to deliver on those expectations?
For instance, customers expect businesses to provide them with the information they need at every stage of their shopping journey. Meet this expectation by using chatbots to help them navigate your site and educate them on your products or services. You can also use customer service emails to mirror and deliver the promises you make throughout the customer journey.
What is UX?
UX, which stands for “user experience,” is how people experience and interact with a service or product. For instance, you interact with a coffee maker when you want a cup of coffee. The carafe, the machine’s color, the materials used to build the device, and other design elements affect how you feel about using the coffeemaker.
Applying this example to digital design, UX is all the elements that affect how customers feel about using your eCommerce site. Examples of common UX elements include ease of navigation, whether the site provides value, site functionality, and the visitor’s overall opinion about using your site.
How can you ensure your eCommerce business delivers excellent UX?
Keep these ideas in mind while creating your site’s UX strategy:
- Make your site easy to navigate. Ask yourself how to make your site as user-friendly as possible.
- Understand your target audience. Consider what type of site design your target customer expects to see when visiting your site.
- Learn the latest trends. What was once popular in your industry may be a thing of the past. Research what today’s customers prefer, trends they like, and trends on the decline.
- Have a goal for every webpage. Keep your site from becoming a confusing house of mirrors by designing every page with a specific goal in mind.
Why is UX important for eCommerce businesses?
Imagine going to Benny’s Shoe Store and knowing the exact style, color, and brand of shoes you want. The business carries the shoes you desire, but it doesn’t organize its selection well, doesn’t post prices, and doesn’t accept your method of payment. If Claire’s Shoe Store makes your shopping experience easier, would you hesitate to abandon your cart at Benny’s? Probably not.
While bad UX makes customers leave your site, great UX makes them want to stay, purchase, and return.
Great UX boosts revenue through customer retention and conversion. Simply optimizing the checkout process could go a long way in supporting your sales.
What is a UX strategy?
A UX strategy guides you in creating a great user experience using customer, business, and product needs. Of course, you want your site to be functional and easy to use, but a great UX strategy dives deeper.
For instance, how does your site save a visitor’s time? How does your site compare to your competitor’s site? While every successful UX strategy hinges on site utility, remember that it’s the user who determines how useful your site is. Include your customers as part of your user experience strategy.
Do UX and CX ever intersect?
Because the customer and user are sometimes the same person, does that mean UX and CX overlap? While UX is part of a larger customer experience, customer experience encompasses some site features UX doesn’t.
For instance, brand recognition, advertising, sales, and customer service are all items related to customer experience. Website and mobile app interactions are all part of the user experience. Can you see how UX depends on CX? The experience you want users to have on your site may hinge on how you want them to interact with your site, which is part of CX.
Rather than intersect, UX is a smaller component of CX. Together, the two play an essential role in overall customer loyalty and your company’s reputation.
Wrap-up
Harnessing the power of UX and CX helps you forge deeper, more-satisfying connections with customers and your target audience. When you understand your target customer’s emotions, how they interact with your site, and what they love most about your company, you have all the information you need to deliver even better service. Do you already have ideas for UX research or a CX audit of your business? Share them in the comments!
Sources:
https://digital.gov/2014/07/07/user-experience-ux-vs-customer-experience-cx-whats-the-dif/
https://modernretail.co.uk/how-ux-analytics-can-make-cx-success-easier-for-ecommerce-teams/
https://workingsolutions.com/how-to-improve-customer-experience-cx/
https://www.oracle.com/cx/what-is-cx/
Author: O’BRIAN GUNN
O’Brian attended the University of North Alabama, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in Professional Writing. As a world weaver and word wrangler, he loves writing sci-fi and fantasy stories exploring everything from accidental heroes to (in)human resource representatives for gods. While not churning out creative content, he enjoys reading, gaming, singing, and watching movies.
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