A personalised and tailored service for customers has long been the hallmark of a successful business. A barista greeting a customer with their name and coffee order, for example, signals a good relationship, acknowledgment of their customers preferences and brand loyalty.
Loyalty is a valuable commodity for business, with studies showing a growth of 5 per cent in customer retention can result in profit increases of 25 per cent or more.
Building trust and loyalty with customers through personalisation became a higher priority for businesses as a rapid shift to e-commerce was required to ensure business continuity.
Focus on data now to help drive your business’s recovery and growth
Businesses need to drive their next move and take forward the lessons learned from 2020. It may be difficult knowing where to start after such a dynamic year but increasing your data driven capabilities will ensure your business not only rebounds from the pandemic but returns stronger than before. In practice, this means tapping into the information readily available from existing or newly introduced e-commerce platforms. This will provide new data sources and opportunities to understand the drivers of your business and where you can improve customer experiences.
Use data to personalise the customer experience
Access to data and a data analyst is crucial to personalising interactions with customers. Beyond the economic recovery from COVID-19, personalisation will include societal trends driven by a desire to support the recovery of small, local businesses. This will likely result in customers preferencing their local supermarket over larger chain stores and products created from locally sourced materials.
Almost overnight in March, organisations were forced to move from a brick-and-mortar model supported by an online presence to existing solely in the digital marketplace. Many companies quickly pulled together a website for online sales and the infrastructure to facilitate click and collect orders without considering the customer experience.
It didn’t take long for people to be drawn to online retail and rely on its convenience. One in five Australians made their first purchase from a new website between March and August last year, according to Australia Post. Many people were left unsatisfied by their initial online interactions. The same Australia Post survey showed almost half of those customers were either unsure or said they would not shop online with that retailer a second time.
First impressions are everything in online retail because, with so much competition, it’s hard to entice people back after a poor digital experience. Luckily, the platforms that allow business owners to personalise customer offerings also allows them to pinpoint opportunities for improvement.
Analyse your data to identify customer experience issues
Not only can e-commerce data help to improve the customer experience when analysed properly, but you can also identify the factors causing customer experience issues and what may be driving people away. For example, you may identify that many potential customers are leaving your website’s checkout page at a certain step. Perhaps your store requires people to create an account to check out, and this isn’t something most customers want to do, causing them to buy elsewhere. Understanding when and why customers are abandoning their online shopping carts is just one example of how analysing your business’s data can help you identify customer experience issues.
Maximise the value of your business’s e-commerce channels
E-commerce platforms are more than just a channel for click and collect orders. The key question you need to ask is, how well do I know my customers, habits, and preferences? One of the characteristics of businesses that have thrived since the outbreak of COVID-19 is the productive use of the insights gathered from online interactions with the business. Insights from customer data will help you learn more about customers than ever before, providing the foundations you need to innovate, tap into new markets, and tailor online interactions to the individual.
If you have questions about how data analytics can help you improve customer experiences in your business, contact a Pitcher Partners specialist below.
