Six ways moving online will deliver great customer service
“It takes months to find a customer… seconds to lose one.” – Vince Lombardi
There are many benefits to moving your manual ordering processes online such as creating cost-efficiencies, decreasing manual errors and increasing overall revenue in your business. But one of the biggest impacts that is often overlooked is its ability to improve your customer’s satisfaction levels to keep them coming back time and time again.
Businesses aim to provide a great customer experience but yet often let their internal processes get in the way of really being able to do this. According to Hubspot “Customer experience is of critical importance to the sustained growth of a business. It's important to ensure a positive customer experience so customers build brand loyalty and affinity, evangelize your product or service and refer their friends, and leave you positive customer reviews that will help your business retain revenue and earn new customers.”
So how can an web ordering system help to retain and delight your customers?
Customer self-service, 24-7 availability
In today’s busy world, time is a precious commodity. Your customers are business owners themselves and are most likely not just working a 9-5 job. Therefore, they want the convenience of being able to place an order where and when it fits in to their day. Allowing your customers to self-serve and order 24 hours a day, means they can place that order for the next day at 8pm if that is what suits them. They can order on their time, not yours.
Customer specific pricing and discounts
One of the most important features of an web ordering platform, is being able to provide your customers with their own special pricing and discounts that have been previously agreed upon. According to MarTech Advisor, a personalised web experience can increase sales by 19% (MarTechAdvisor, 2018). Whether this is bulk discounts, special shipping rates or customised products, your customers want to be able to order what they need at the right price. By being able to segment your customer groups in the backend of your store, you are able to offer a customised service that a regular retail web store is not able to provide.
“Building a good customer experience does not happen by accident. It happens by design.” – Clare Muscutt
An up-to-date catalogue with richer product descriptions
A traditional printed product catalogue is great to display your product range but is out of date before it reaches your customer’s hands. With an online catalogue, you always have an up-to-date catalogue and in real-time, update images, descriptions and pricing online. You can also provide richer product descriptions, more images, links to relevant articles or blogs, and instructional videos (see below). For a customer making a purchasing decision, more information builds trust and confidence that the product they are buying is the right one. It also means a lot less returns and customer frustrations with buying the wrong product.
Online invoices and order history
How frustrating as a customer, when all you need is one piece of information from an invoice, and you have to make several phone calls or emails and wait for someone to call you back. Being able to self-serve and find all your invoicing and order history in one place is time-saving mastery! By also having a re-order button on your platform, your customers will be able to re-order your products with a single click. This is especially useful if your customers order the same items and quantities from you on a regular basis. Making life easy for your customers means they will come back time and time again.
Up-to-date pricing and stock availability
Keep your customers informed of the latest pricing and stock availability right on the product page. As well as making sure you are selling your products at the right price, your customers know up front if something is unavailable and when it is coming back in to stock. There’s nothing more frustrating than spending the time to place items in to a cart, only to find out that it is unavailable when you go to pay, or even worse after you have placed the order. An informed customer is a happy customer.
“If you are not taking care of your customer, your competitor will.” – Bob Hooey
Instructional videos
Humans are visual creatures, meaning we use our sense of sight more than any other sense to help us make decisions. According to Thermopylae Sciences and Technology, ‘we respond to and process visual data better than any other type of data. In fact, the human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text, and 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual.’ So what does this mean for your web ordering syste,? By including some video content of your products or someone using your product, you are helping your customers to make the right purchasing decision. By ordering the correct products online, you will also save your customer from future frustration by receiving an incorrect order and having to return it. This could be the difference between a customer ordering from you or your competitor.
These are our top 6 ways to deliver a great customer experience. What other customer service benefits have you found by moving your processes online? If you want to learn more about how a ComCloud system can help your business deliver exceptional customer satisfaction, please get in touch with us.
