We understand you're up against big players such as Amazon.com, but your small online shop can find greater success with a unique product and a memorable customer experience.
Developing customer service changes for a brick and mortar location is fairly simple, but for an online storefront it’s a little bit trickier. While the person-to-person contact may be absent, there are a few ways to improve your customer experience online by adding that little extra something to the right channels.
Your brand is similar to how you perceive your high school reputation -- it’s built on what other people think of you, not what you think of you. You leverage your brand by taking care of customers and building a superior product, but you don’t control your brand. However, you do control your personality.
Ok, it might feel like you're opening up a whole new can of worms. But, once you discover that brand loyalty is built on personality, and not on partial metrics like engagement, you'll be on your way to delivering a rock-solid customer experience. See these recent findings from Harvard's Business Review which exposes three classic customer experience myths:
Customers want to have relationships with brands. Truth: 77% don’t.
An increase in interactions is always the answer. Truth: Your customers can suffer from information overload.
Loyalty comes from regularly engaging with a brand. Truth: Brand loyalty is built on shared values.
All of this should begin with your customer. For example, Frank & Oak, an online menswear retailer that recommends clothing to shoppers through a personalized monthly email, showcases a minimalist personality that is extremely effective.
Not to mention, when a customer browses their website, he is shown products that fit with his personal style based on preference and purchase history. It’s also important to note that Frank & Oak isn’t simply promoting items through the monthly emails: they’re educating the customer and inspiring them with content that reads more like a lifestyle guide. In this way, they are bridging the gap between high-end personal advising and the convenience of online shopping. If you go to their “Returns” section, which has instructions on how to return products, you are greeted with a live chat option from Jamie in Member Services:
The layout is clean and simple, much like their brand personality. This makes it incredibly easy to navigate their page, allowing for a seamless customer experience. While their reputation will still be built on whether or not they can deliver a quality product, their clean interface and brand personality goes a long way in winning over prospective members.
There’s a concept that Gregory Ciotti from Help Scout coined the "Customer Service Tone", which emphasizes casual, personable copy on pages that only your customers will see. This is usually seen after an account has been created, or a transaction has been made.
These are great opportunities to apply your customer service tone. A visitor just signed up with you, you might as well add some personal flare to it. All you need to guarantee is that users know what just happened, or what will happen. Here’s an awesome, personable confirmation setup page from MailChimp:
I understand the information I need, but I also get a candid ‘high five’ from the provider. It may be automated, but it’s a nice change from the generic “thanks!”.
So, have you thought about where you can apply this personable style of writing to your online store's experience?
Be sure to check back for more actionable customer experience insights later this week!
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