Sellers, today we are going to talk about your customer audience. And we are going to focus on a particular audience, the people who are likely to shop online. The Gen Z Audience. Let’s look at how you can improve the customer experience for online sellers.
Digital fluency and tech savviness among this generation demand transparency, personalization, and authenticity in their tech experience. And it is not just Gen Z that craves these services; it is every other online seller. The internet has changed how people shop, and access to information helps them make informed purchase decisions.
Let’s talk about something we have all done. You have a smartphone. Think about the days, weeks, or even months prior to purchasing your phone. What made you decide on the brand, and your type of phone? You probably saw an Ad, or liked a phone with a friend or relative. However, you wanted to know more about the phone specs, pricing, different outlets and so on. This is almost every other e-commerce customer journey. We all want to know everything we can before we spend money on a product.
Now, as a seller, you need to concentrate on offering this information. Your product page should include a detailed description of the product, pricing, and offers. In addition to this, you should optimize your online store to provide value and present your offers in a way that attracts, engages, and educates your customers.
3 Key Strategies to Improve Customer Experience for Online Sellers
In this article, we are going to look at the 3 pillars to improve the customer experience for online sellers:
- Transparency in pricing and specifications
- Personalized customer experience
- Authentic brand experience
Transparency in pricing and product specifications
Your customers want transparency when shopping especially in your pricing and product information. In addition, they want to know how much money they need to pay for a product or service. It is therefore important to include any other costs like shipping/delivery fees.
Gen Z shoppers want to make informed purchase decisions with minimal human interaction. Be upfront with your pricing, and also return policy to avoid negative feedback that could affect your sales.
Another example of how you could improve transparency is by communicating the shipping duration. It would also help to include payment details and models. Do you offer pay on delivery or do customers have to pay before dispatch?
Here are some tips that can help you improve transparency to foster strong customer relationships:
- Clear terms and conditions
- Refund Policy
- Return Policy
- Shipping information
- Genuine product photos and videos
- GDPR compliance for safe online shopping
Transparency will improve the customer experience for online sellers. It also increases customer trust since you have a policy that holds both you and the customer accountable prior to purchase.
Personalized customer experience
Personalizing your customer experience makes it fun to shop from your site. Gen Z customers will personalize their social media profiles to show only the content they like. It is not different from shopping their shopping experience.
What does this mean? Picture this, you are scrolling through your Facebook or Twitter feed. But you keep getting Ads about things you are not interested in. To avoid this, you can hide the ad, and other similar ads, from showing on your timeline.
As an e-commerce brand, you can use data to offer a personalized customer experience. You must be wondering what data we are talking about. Well, this takes you back to understanding who your customer is by collecting data ranging from:
Demographic information
When starting an e-commerce business, you must spend some time defining your target audience. Demographic data includes name, age, location, gender, etc. Now, to accelerate your growth, go back to your analytic data and draw a new buyer persona from your existing customers.
Behavioral Data
Behavior data now gives you more personalized data about your customer. You will get data about how your customers interact with your website such as pages visited, links clicked, average time on site, and number of visits. Where do you get this information? Google Analytics and Google Search Console are your best partners here.
Contextual data
This includes the devices that your customers use to interact with your online shop. It could also include, browser type, location, and time of the day they use your site. It will help you customize how and when you communicate with your customers.
The purpose of collecting this data is to help you personalize how you communicate with your customers. It will also help you to personalize their shopping experience by offering product recommendations. You will also be able to optimize your one-click upsells.
In addition, sending personalized messages through email, (or your customer’s preferred mode of communication) will help you retain your Gen Z customer cohort.
How to personalize customer experience for online sellers?
And by the way, are you using email marketing techniques to communicate with your customers? Or maybe you think no one looks at emails anymore? Well, if you are not, here are our top tips to personalize your emails, or messaging to enhance customer engagement:
- Use your customer’s first name when sending personalized offers based on their previous purchase/visited pages.
- Break your email into scannable content. For instance, use images, videos, and text to make your content easy to consume.
- Offer high-value content. For instance, get some time and send them a tutorial to solve a problem. (Assuming you have already discovered some of the problems your customers are facing)
Personalization does not end here. You can track your customer response and continue using data to personalize your customer experience. Well, this would be another piece of content to exhaust the best personalization practices, which we will create.
Authentic Brand Experience
Brand authenticity will increase customer trust and loyalty. In turn, this gives you high customer retention because people are likely to buy more from brands and shops they trust. As an e-commerce business, you must establish the tone, and format of how you present your content.
Here are a few tips for e-commerce sellers in Kenya can use to create an authentic shopping experience for their customers:
Be genuine about your products and pricing
Honesty is an important aspect of e-commerce, especially when selling to an audience that prefers minimal human interaction to make a purchase decision. Only advertise or showcase products in stock. Customers hate to feel lied to when shopping.
Define your unique selling point
What makes your brand unique? Why would customers buy from you as opposed to your competitor? This is your chance to communicate your value to your customers. Is it timely delivery? Smooth shopping experience?
Create high-quality content for your brand
How do you communicate with your customers? It is important to create high-quality content for your social media pages, blog, or emails. In addition to quality, you also have to remain consistent with your content delivery pipeline.
The most important element of brand authenticity is maintaining brand consistency. It will help you engage with your customers. When your customers share your content, it becomes user-generated content (UGC) which is considered 60% more authentic.
Create content that attracts, engages, and educates your customers to make informed purchase decisions.
In conclusion, offering transparency, personalization, and authenticity, not only will you acquire new customers but also improve customer experience for online sellers. In turn, this creates a channel for consistent cash flow.