The customer experience can make or break your business. It can be overwhelming to think about, but a series of errors and bad reviews can cause the trust in your business to dwindle, and this could lead to financial issues occurring. This is why you must ensure the customer experience is a good one; after all, the customer is king.
There are many aspects of your business that will affect the experiences your customers have. Throughout the entire browsing and purchasing process, your customer will see a lot of what your business has to offer, so you must highlight the good. Three of the most important aspects that will impact the customer experience include the website usability, checkout process, and shipping and delivery, and these aspects will be outlined in more detail below.
Website Usability
There are two main factors that relate to the usability of a website: how easy it is to use and how well it meets the user’s needs. A website’s design and overall structure will affect how users can achieve their aims through interacting and navigating with the site. Most businesses view website usability as important due to the issues an inefficient website can cause; for example, if a customer cannot find a product, then they cannot buy it.
User testing is often the best way to monitor and improve usability. This will see a handful of customers or employees, who should be from a different department, performing tasks with the design, such as searching for products or manoeuvring through the checkout process. You can take this opportunity to observe what these representative users do as well as determine where they succeed in tasks and where they experience difficulties. It is essential you do not influence this type of testing as that would alter how organic the results are.
Small test groups are usually more effective, and the testing can be repeated as the website design is revised. By completing a number of tests, you will create a website that will satisfy your customers’ needs, and they will be more likely to make a purchase or place an order with your business.
Checkout Process
Although the checkout process will be related to the website usability, this aspect merits an explanation all on its own. Why? Because the checkout is the last step that customers have to back out of a sale, and you must put in the work to ensure this does not occur. Of course, some consumers will abandon a cart at this stage, and this cannot always be helped, but improving the checkout process could help to limit how often this happens.
In fact, according to the Baymard Institute’s 2024 data, 22% of cart abandonments happened due to the checkout process being too long or overly complicated. To combat this issue, you might make sure guests can checkout their purchases without creating an account, as this can extend the amount of time and effort online shoppers need. Additionally, if you surprise customers with extra fees at checkout, this could result in abandoned carts; instead, you should be clear about these fees, whether that’s tax or shipping, from the get-go.
Shipping and Delivery
With the knowledge that surprise shipping fees can cause customers to abandon their carts at the checkout process, there is a clear indication that shipping can change the customer experience. Shipping has several components that matter to online shoppers, with the cost of delivery often being the most important feature. Statista reported that 35% of respondents to their survey stated this was the number one feature they considered when shopping online, with 23% stating they prioritized speed of delivery. Clearly, this is an aspect your business should look at.
Businesses should look at the delivery methods they use to ensure customers receive the options they want. Working with a courier service, like these Detroit couriers, can up your business’ shipping and delivery game. Couriers that offer same-day delivery services and utilize logistics technology will see orders arriving safely at your customers’ doorsteps on time. As many services will offer comprehensive services, you can gain the best deal by outsourcing this instead of completing this aspect in-house.
By focusing your efforts on the three aspects mentioned in this post, your business will operate more efficiently and improve the customer experience you provide.