In today's business environment, ecommerce customer experience is critical to the success of a business. This is even more critical for B2B companies. Unlike decades ago, when the waiting game was OK for customers, they are no longer willing to wait for days to have their issues resolved or their questions answered.
Statistics show that the average time customers are willing to hold a support call before hanging up is 11 minutes. On live chat, they are only willing to wait for a response for 45 seconds. Because of the high connectivity available today, customers have numerous options. The available data shows that 51% of customers are not willing to buy from a company again after experiencing a single negative experience
For any ecommerce business, these statistics are enlightening, particularly because customers rarely interact with these kinds of businesses physically. As such, every ecommerce business needs to have a super-efficient team to handle its customer support tasks. But having a great team alone is not enough to provide customers with a positive ecommerce customer experience every time they reach out. B2B companies also need to invest in support tools that speed up the process of resolving customer issues.
Here are five powerful ecommerce tools that every B2B ecommerce business must have to enhance customer experience:
1. Live chat for instant problem resolution
Live chat is one of the best ecommerce tools. It allows companies to support people who visit their ecommerce sites in real-time. It makes it possible for customer queries to be received and resolved in a matter of minutes. Online shoppers can speak to a customer representative and receive help promptly, including getting suggestions of products or services that match the needs they have.
Besides easing the communication between businesses and consumers, live chat also enables B2B companies to welcome visitors to their online stores and begin establishing service offerings to build customer trust. Rather than letting potential customers navigate their way through an online store by themselves, live chats offer ecommerce companies an opportunity to give customers a brick and mortar experience virtually. For instance, using live chats to send a friendly offer to help can trigger a conversation that ultimately turns a visitor into a customer.
B2B companies cannot overlook the use of live chats because customers expect to find them online. Statistics show that at least 33% of consumers currently expecting to see welcome messages via live chats whenever they visit a website. Some of the benefits that ecommerce businesses can expect to reap from using live chats include:
- fast resolution of customer issues,
- increased conversion rates,
- rising sales volumes
- reducing customer support costs
One of the companies that make creative use of live chats is Betterment. This online consultancy firm uses proactive, targeted, customized chat invitations to appeal and engage top-tier customers after they create a new account. Using live chats, the company's financial advisors provide new clients with personalized and instant financial services to build their confidence in the company.
2. Provide Omnichannel help desk to provide support anytime, anywhere
Today, omnichannel support is relevant for B2B customers more than ever before because it provides an all-round approach to customer service. Even when customers switch from one communication channel to another, they expect to receive a consistent and seamless ecommerce customer experience.
Existing statistics show that a third of B2B buyers are willing to buy at least 90% of their products or services online and most of them will only seek help through offline channels if there is friction within their online experience. With these statistics, ecommerce businesses that are keen on providing their customers with positive experiences should use customer service help desk software like ProProfs Help Desk to ensure that no communication from customers falls through the cracks.
An omnichannel help desk enables B2B companies to unify the information and messages sent by customers through different communication channels onto a single platform. This makes it easy for ecommerce customer service representative teams to respond to customer queries, track conversations, access previous interactions, and follow customers up.
3. Social media pages that invite questions of customers
Statistics show that currently, 3.5 billion people across the globe use social media. At the same time, 50 million businesses had Facebook accounts last year. At the same time, statistics show that 78% of customers are of the view that social media is the next customer service frontier and 88% of consumers are likely to stop buying from you if the issues they raise on social media are not responded to.
These statistics make social media pages a huge tool for enhancing ecommerce customer experience that B2B companies cannot ignore. While companies can use these platforms to drive traffic to their online stores and sell products, they can also use them to connect and relate with customers.
But beyond this, B2B companies can use social media to give customers positive experiences. This is important because existing data shows that consumers who receive positive interactions with a brand on social media are three times more likely to recommend it to others. It is worth noting that comments made by your customers about your brand on social media reach more people.
Generating positive interactions on social media starts by engaging your customers and listening to them. While there are different ways to do this, one of the most effective ways is by inviting your social media followers to ask questions. Often, those questions will provide insights into the kind of information they need. Use this insight to develop and share content that is relevant to your audience.
4. Send web push notifications
Across the globe, push notifications have grown in their importance and use to become marketing tools that B2B companies can utilize push notifications to enhance the ecommerce customer experience. The technology behind push notifications makes it possible to deliver messages directly to customers' mobile devices in real-time, even after they have left the ecommerce site.
In ecommerce, push notifications have proven to be effective in driving engagement with customers and driving conversion rates. Some of the ways your company can use push notifications to engage customers to include:
- Promoting product or service special discounts and offers by sending direct messages to customer's mobile devices
- Interacting with customers who are not browsing your ecommerce store
- Sending notifications to customers informing them of their abandoned carts
- Building a brand reputation by providing customers with quality content that improves customer loyalty and trust
- Directing customers to specific ecommerce pages and informing them of your company's social media platforms
One of the key benefits of push notifications is that it allows ecommerce businesses to reach different demographics. These notifications also tend to have a high opt-in percentage because customers get to view the messages on their mobile screens and do not need to go through a login process to read the message. Some of the ways that B2B companies can increase ecommerce customer experience with push notifications include:
- Sending personalized messages to customers, like starting the message with a customer's name
- Crafting and sending messages on stuff that the target customers care about
- Sending messages that remind customers of carts they've abandoned on the ecommerce site
- Using the customer's history of browsing the ecommerce site to update messages that are sent to them.
For instance, Sephora, a beauty brand sends its users notifications reminding them of items they browsed but did not buy. The company also sends users notifications about special offers and events in stores nearby.
Another company that uses push notifications well is Brazil-based company called Dinda. The notifications are designed to help it acquire new customers and retain current ones. In the message, the company informs its target customers of specific items they expressed interest in previously. For users whose risk of dropping off is higher, the company pushes more notifications.
5. Create self-explanatory landing pages
Landing pages serve as important tools for boosting ecommerce customer experience by filtering noise and directing customers to what they need to make a purchase. By their design, landing pages are the place visitor land when they enter your ecommerce website. From a marketing perspective, it is a standalone page that is distinct from the main ecommerce site designed to help the business collect customer information through account creation or signups.
The best landing page for an ecommerce B2B company is a click-through type whose main goal is to get a visitor to get to another page. This type of landing page serves the purpose of describing an offer or a product in detail with a view of driving sales. From the click-through page, this landing page takes the visitor either to a registration page or to the shopping cart.
An ecommerce site that uses a click-through landing page is Lumosity. From its landing page, this online store allows users to 'get started' through a clear call-to-action. After this stage, users are taken to the account setup stage via a two-step registration process then to training programs.
Taking it Away
In the highly competitive environment that businesses operate in today, providing customers with a positive experience is the key to succeeding in an ecommerce business. B2B companies that run ecommerce businesses can use the tools discussed above to enhance the experience of their customers and drive sales. If you are not using any of these tools already, the best way to get started is to pick one tool and execute it’s progressing to using others gradually.
