5 Ways to Improve Your Online Customer Experience
It’s fair to say that the majority of modern business is online. Whether it is content consumers casually browsing YouTube, eager shoppers finding bargains on online stores. Or the popularity of online marketplaces that offer every product under the sun with next-day delivery. Most businesses now at least have a website or a social media account. And it can be difficult to know how to better harness the potential of the internet. This is because, as technology evolves. There is an increasingly varied number of ways you can market your products and services online. However, understanding what these tools are and how you can decide which are the best fit for your enterprise is not a quick task. Here we will talk about how to improve online customer experience.
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Indeed, it can be difficult to know how to stand out on the internet at all. In a sea of noise, trying to connect your brand with prospects to provide them with a memorable customer experience is incredibly challenging.
This becomes harder by the fact that if you try to jump on every bandwagon. Because your business’s online presence will get weaker. Spreading yourself thin between multiple social media platforms, a website, and whatever other tools are currently popular just makes your brand look needy and will be a managerial headache.
Instead, it is wise to start from scratch and slowly build a coherent online presence.
If you are stuck for ideas, here are five ways to improve your online customer experience:
Find out What Your Rivals are Doing
One of the most important actions you can take when you are trying to improve your business’s online customer experience is to find out what your rivals are offering.
Conducting market research is one of the oldest tricks in the book, but it has only become more important in the digital age.
With a seemingly limitless number of rivals from around the globe trying to attract your prospects, you can’t afford to miss a trick.
For example, if you are trying to develop an app to enhance your online experience, then you need to know what the top apps are.
Not only will finding out what your rivals are up to help you to stay up to date with the latest industry trends. But it may also spark some ideas that you can use to enhance your online customer experience.
Apps Create a Closer Relationship Between You and Your Audience
Improving your online customer experience is all about making the connection between your brand and your customer deeper.
When you do this, your customer will begin to think about your brand more often, and you will even spark an emotional response in them, which will keep them coming back for more products in the future.
One of the best ways to create a closer relationship between your business and your audience is to create your own app.
This is because apps are removed from other forms of online content. The customer will have to go out of their way to download your app (investing both their time and money in the process), and stay on the app at the exclusion of potentially distracting platforms like social media.
Furthermore, an app gives you a great opportunity to push in-app purchases, as well as give the customer a more tailored experience.
Create an Email List
Building a strong online experience for your customer means making them acquainted with your business’s wider ethos.
This needs to be communicated regularly. So that it gradually sinks into the minds of your customers and effectively ‘trains’ them to desire your products.
If you want to see an example of how this works, observe how successful Disney has been with its Disneyland experiences.
While creating your own theme park is a tad excessive for most budgets, you can do this easily by building an email list.
When you send engaging and persuasive emails with your unique personality, people who respond well to them are far more likely to buy your products.
Social Media Can Solidify Your Brand Identity
While the benefits of social media are hardly a secret, it doesn’t mean that they should be ignored completely.
If you want to use social media to enhance your online customer experience, it is best to stick to one or two platforms rather than spread yourself thin over a number of networks. This will make your content upkeep far more manageable and ensure your audience numbers are strong rather than watered down.
The benefit for the customer is tthe following. If your content is correct, they will remind of your brand (similarly to the email list). But also have the chance to engage directly with you.
You Can Create a More Immersive Customer Experience Through the Metaverse
Of course, so far, we have only discussed tried and tested approaches to improving your business’s online customer experience.
However, if you really want to leap ahead of your rivals, you need to embrace the technology of the future.
In this case, it is worth considering the power of the metaverse.
The metaverse is the name what is the next stage of the internet. And it is likely to incorporate virtual reality as well as blockchain technology.
The metaverse could be transformative for customer experiences. Because it is that users literally ‘live’ inside the internet. Just like a giant, hyper-realistic video game.
People will be able to walk into a digital shopping mall, go to virtual concerts, visit an art gallery. And also can take meetings with their colleagues, all inside the metaverse.
You could, therefore, create your very own digital real estate. Whether in the form of a store, merchandise, or even a digital experience such as a theme park.
Although this technology is in its infancy, the potential is limitless. If you learn them early, you could steal a march on your rivals by completely revolutionizing your customer experience.
11+ years strategic communications, marketing, and project management experience. I am a trainer at StarWood Training Institute, focusing on online courses for project management professionals.
