The Changing Face of Customer Engagement and E-Commerce

With 74% of online adults now using social networking sites, the days of one-sided communication are over.

The recent rise in social media has resulted in a complete shift in the way people communicate. The voice of the customer is the loudest it has ever been.

Additionally, the world of e-commerce has seen exponential growth with worldwide B2C e-commerce sales amounting to more than 1.2 trillion US dollars in 2013. The rise in social networking coupled with the growth of e-commerce holds massive ramifications for businesses customer engagement strategies.

In this competitive e-commerce arena, businesses must learn how to grab the attention of potential customers, excite them and earn their loyalty. Success will lead a brand to converting site visits into sales.

So, how does an e-commerce business successfully tackle the challenge of engaging customers?

Personal Engagement

Ensure every interaction between a brand and the customer is personalised and valuable. Consumers appreciate the personal touch and familiarity of a personalised site, leading to an improvement in both conversion and retention rates.

Tips for achieving personalisation:

• Personalized product recommendations: present shoppers with tailored or only the most relevant product suggestions.
• Onsite personalization: personalized welcome messages when a customer signs in to their account or display their most recently viewed items.
• Live chat: provide customers with an online sales expert who can deliver personal advice and guidance.

Rich Engagement

Despite shopping through a screen, customers seek a pleasurable and satisfying online shopping experience. An e-commerce business needs to tap into these consumer preferences by providing them with a rich online shopping experience.

Tips for creating the optimum shopping experience:

• Functionality: everything on a site from the search tab to hyperlinks to contact forms should work effectively and efficiently. A poorly constructed site will quickly turn visitors away.
• Usability: A site should be easy to navigate, enjoyable to read through and clear to understand. Keep in mind the ‘three-click rule,’ whereby visitors should be able to find any information they require within three clicks.
• Appearance: a site must be visually appealing with a professional feel. Decisions regarding choice of colors, fonts, headings and images should be based on careful research and thought.
• Responsiveness: create a website layout that can be easily accessed, and is optimized for all devices i.e. mobile, iPad and desktop.
• Content: All content on the site must be current, easily understood and relevant. It is a good idea to provide visitors with some form of onsite guidance to assist in navigation, product choice and to enable an informed decision.

Ultimately to successfully engage customers and achieve their highest sales potential, an e-commerce site must be one hundred percent consumer orientated.