Inexpensive Ways to Enhance Your Customer Experience That Go Beyond Personalization

Curating a customer experience that draws users in as soon as they land on your ecommerce site is a significant undertaking, but it's worth the effort. Unfortunately, less than 1 in 4 brands have the necessary technology to engage with customers consistently, which highlights the importance of investing in CX technology and strategies to ensure customers are happy and satisfied with their experiences. 

‍“CXM = The art and science of coaxing lifetime loyalty from daily transactions.” – Steve Curtin

For brands that are delaying this process, the costs are unforgivingly high. A whopping 86% of consumers are likely to leave a brand after just two poor experiences, while 49% have already abandoned a brand in the past year due to poor customer experience.

These figures demonstrate the significant impact that poor customer experiences can have on customer retention and revenue. On the other hand, Overall, businesses that prioritize customer experience are more likely to retain customers and drive revenue growth.

While there are many ways to enhance your customer experience, personalization is often seen as the key ingredient (or the low-hanging fruit) in the process. 

There's more to a well-curated CX than personalization. In fact, the massive technological strides in the ecommerce ecosystem driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI), NLP search engines and advanced machine learning (ML) algorithms are making it possible for brands to elevate their users' experience at every possible touch point. 

In this blog post, we'll explore some of these effective (and inexpensive) ways to enhance your customer experience, beyond personalization. So, let's dive right in. 

Ensure your ecommerce site is equipped for intelligent product search and navigation

Nearly 43% of users reach for the search bar when they interact with a website. Yet, only 1 in 10 consumers say they find precisely what they’re searching for every time using the search function. 

Suffice to say, site search and product discovery have a significant influence on customer experience. In fact, an alarming 68% of customers would not return to a site with a poor search experience.

It is therefore a must for ecommerce stores to invest in a robust site search functionality. But what does a smart/intelligent search functionality look like? 

Often powered by technologies like Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Learning, Neural Networks, and AI algorithms, smart search engines can offer advanced search features like - 

• Autocomplete and predictive search 
• Handling natural language queries that go beyond keyword matching
• Delivering relevant search results even with misspellings, typos, and synonyms 
• Contextual search suggestions 
• Multilingual (and even mixed-language) query support 
• Intelligent product recommendations
• Dynamic ranking 

With third-party search and discovery platforms, implementing these suite search solutions has become accessible to deliver a delightful customer experience on scale. 

Include live chat support and FAQs

‍30% of customers expect live chat on your website, according to Forrester.  Live chat support allows customers to get their questions answered in real-time by a live agent (often powered by AI). This is a great way to provide immediate assistance and resolve any issues the customer may be having.

By automating repetitive tasks, AI chatbots can free up your team to provide higher-level support. Further, they can provide a more personalized experience for your customers by engaging with them in natural language conversations. 

The fact that they are available 24/7 for live support is another big win when it comes to CX. In fact, 60% of customers surveyed by ServiceBell like to send and receive messages using a chat service rather than deal with an agent for help with an issue.

FAQs are another great resource for customers who prefer to find answers on their own. Including a FAQ section on your website can provide valuable information to your customers and make it easily accessible. 

Make products easily discoverable

If products are difficult to find, customers are likely to give up on looking for them. One way to make products easily discoverable is through effective product categorization and organization. This allows customers to quickly find the product they need by browsing categories or using search filters. Adopting a customer-centric approach, such as structuring the website around customer needs and interests, can also help customers find the right product more quickly and easily.

Offer product recommendations that go beyond user data (collaborative filtering)

Collaborative filtering is a method of making recommendations that are based on the collective opinions of a group of people. This can be done by taking into account the ratings that other users have given to products, as well as the demographic information of those users. By using collaborative filtering, ecommerce businesses can offer recommendations that are more tailored to the individual user and that are not limited by the data that they have on hand.

Offer advanced filters and facets

Advanced filters allow you to customize the display of your products based on a variety of factors, such as the category or category subcategory that the product falls into. Facets allow you to display products in a specific way, such as by brand, style, color, or price. This can be helpful in providing more detailed information about the products that are available on your website. the product belongs to, its price range, its color, its brand, or any other attribute. Facets are additional filters that allow users to narrow down their search results even further by selecting more specific criteria, such as a product’s size or material type.

Conclusion

In conclusion, personalization is a great way to enhance customer experience and make customers feel valued. However, there are also many other inexpensive strategies companies can use to increase customer satisfaction such as offering loyalty programs, providing excellent customer service, and staying up-to-date with the latest trends. By implementing these strategies and focusing on creating an enjoyable shopping experience for customers, companies will be sure to see higher customer retention rates in no time.

AI-driven platforms like Zevi ensure companies can deliver superior customer experience through intelligent product search and discovery, search merchandising, and personalized recommendations. To experience this for your ecommerce store, book your free demo now.