As the digital landscape constantly changes and evolves, the way a potential customer interacts with your brand does as well. Often thought of as a cost center, customer experience is actually a profit center, and brands should recognize its importance to the overall business. A positive and interactive customer experience can help lower Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), increase conversion, improve Net Promoter Score (NPS), and helps improve your brand and service overall.

eCommerce Stores and Customer Satisfaction

So how do you know if you’re making your customer happy? Consumer feedback from product reviews, comments, and NPS scores are all key to understanding how well your store is doing. WITHIN works with some of the best and biggest brands in the world, and our client data shows that there is a clear relationship between a good customer experience and conversion. Driving traffic to your website doesn’t mean the traffic will convert — especially if there’s a negative customer experience.

If you have both a storefront and an online presence, your eCommerce store is just as important as your physical location(s). The same holds true for many of the biggest brands and retailers in the world. In 2020, WITHIN client Nike gained 30% of its total revenue through their eCommerce store. Your company’s online store should receive the same consideration and planning as a physical store does, delivering high-quality service to potential customers. A bad customer experience on your site means a lost opportunity to convert a consumer. 

Live Chat Is the New Social Interaction

In today’s social landscape (particularly now, in the midst of a pandemic) the way we communicate with customers and potential customers is of utmost importance. People are social creatures, after all. When a brand is “humanized,” it is more likely to ring true and create a relationship with a potential customer. Consider this: When going into a brick-and-mortar store, customers can browse the products, try them out, and direct questions to salespeople. The shopping experience as a whole has a lot of social interaction, and this sort of interaction is important when creating a relationship between consumers and brands.

As a result of the quick and dramatic shift from in-person shopping to online shopping, the emphasis on positive digitally driven experiences has grown. Live Chat is the preferred method to access brands, but when a customer has questions or needs help while on a website, they become frustrated if they have to wait. The most successful brands are replying immediately or within minutes, while brands replying days later are earning themselves a less-than-favorable reputation. The longer a customer has to wait for information and service, the more likely they are to leave the site without purchasing.

To implement this type of communication feature on your website and into your business, you must have a big enough team to handle the potential volume. If you offer Live Chat, but don’t manage it properly, it can result in negative experiences, lost conversions, and higher costs on the top end of the funnel. If you’re not efficiently serving 90% or more of the volume, Live Chat could do you more harm than good.

So, if your goal is to lower CAC, improve customer sentiment, improve conversion and grow revenue, stop thinking about customer service as a cost center. Instead, recognize that it is one of the most important investments you can make to grow your topline and bottom line revenue.

To learn more about creating positive client relationships, get in touch.