7 Ways to Enhance Your Digital Customer Experience

This past year and a half have been anything but easy for consumers and businesses. With everything moving online and companies transitioning to digital, it has been a bumpy and uneasy road. But, once you get the hang of the digital realm and learn how to create the perfect space for your consumers, thus increasing your digital customer experience, then it’s all uphill from there!

Consumers still want that effortless, positive customer experience they’re used to having face-to-face, just now online. If they don’t receive it, they will go elsewhere, or worse, tell their family and friends to stay away from the brand that wronged them.

To avoid these negative experiences online, we’re giving you 7 ways your brand can enhance your digital customer experience right now to increase revenue and customer loyalty. Let’s get into it!

Differentiate Your Brand from the Competition

The first step to a positive digital customer experience is making it unique and standing out from the crowd (and it’s a big, big crowd of brands out there). With the recent pandemic, almost all companies are online, so it’s time to think outside of the box and give your customers a digital experience they have never or at least very rarely encountered.

It’s time to change the ways things have always been done. For example, standing up for certain human rights and social justice issues can let consumers know you care about current injustices and want to make a change. Nowadays, people want to know what and who brands are supporting. Choose a cause and show your support loudly and proudly. People want to see change. 

People also want to know your brand can solve something for them, making their experience with your brand a positive one. Try solving an issue like Gusto, who offers small businesses a simple and affordable way to manage all aspects of the payroll system. 

If you’re brand already has its niche, try brainstorming new ways to solve problems for your clients. For example, if you’re a small bakery, try offering free delivery for your clients. This allows your customers to enjoy your baked goods without leaving the house, which is perfect for those who don’t live close. There are endless ways of sticking out from the crowd to impress your customers!

Personalize Your Customer Experience

It’s 2021, which means everyone expects a personalized customer experience. 79% of consumers in a 2000 consumer poll agreed that the more personalization tactics a brand used, the more loyal they are to that brand. 

It’s one thing to differentiate yourself from other brands, but you also need to personalize the experience to cater to your customers directly. Personalization is known to build customer loyalty and boost revenue – who doesn’t want that!

Get to know each customer, not just all your customers. Use individualized personalization to get a better understanding of each of your customers. Try collecting basic personal information, providing surveys, offering a loyalty program, and giving customers a choice on your website. Just be careful with privacy issues and let your customers know it’s for personalization purposes. 81% of consumers are willing to share basic personal information in exchange for a more personalized experience.  

Go Behind the Scenes

Speaking of personalization, you must build trust and loyalty with your customers on a personal level. 

Take your customers behind the scenes! Customer experience isn’t all about what the customer receives from your company, but it’s how they receive it. Humans are curious beings, and the more they know about your brand and how things happen behind the curtain, the more they are willing to trust and connect with your brand.

Thanks to digital, showing your customers and followers how it all happens is easier than ever through video and live streams. Have an employee create a “Day in the Life” video filming their entire workday from their morning coffee to their last email. 

Another great way to leverage social media is to have an influencer or a lucky winner take over your social media accounts, showing your followers how they use your products and services. Again, just creating that personalized approach can go a long way!

Create Seamless, Omnichannel Interactions

Seamless interactions are a must in this digital era. The worst thing you can do is frustrate your customer with your website or links not loading, a complicated checkout process, not enough information, and the list goes on. So, first, you need to make sure everything is working properly. One of the basics of SEO is that your site is error-free. Check out one of our recent blogs on How to Improve your UI Design and Stop Customers From Leaving Your Site to fix any problems. 

Once that is done, you’ll want that seamless interaction to continue on all your platforms – this is called omnichannel interactions and experiences. This allows your customer to move from your website to a chat box or call centre, to your mobile site, social media pages, and even your physical store without any frustrations, inconsistencies, or need to start over. Once you have this digital experience nailed effortlessly, then you’ll see the customers flowing in, more discussion around your brand, and a leg up on the competition. Don’t miss this crucial step!

Provide Closed-Loop Feedback

This one’s all about providing feedback on your feedback. Customers are bound to leave reviews and feedback on their experiences, whether positive or negative. But it’s how you respond that can enhance positive customer experiences and hopefully change negative ones.

Closed-Loop Feedback is not only responding to the customer, but it’s responding in a way to understand that customer’s experience. We’ll use the hypothetical dessert company again as an example. Let’s say a customer wrote a negative google review about how they received the wrong dessert. You would then respond with questions about what dessert they ordered, what dessert they received, how the rest of the experience went, then closing it with a free dessert offer to make the overall experience more positive. Not only do the questions give you feedback on the experience as a whole, but you can use it as future data to improve experiences with the next customer.  

Closed-Loop Feedback is so crucial online as people are much more open to criticizing when there’s no face-to-face interaction. Plus, other customers can read these reviews and experiences, which could turn them away from your products or services. So you must be on top of your reviews, comments, and messages to ensure your customers have the experience they want to have. On the bright side, at least brands are now aware of what people really think through these digital forums. 

If reviews are positive, try to reply to those as well! Nothing says a company cares than when they respond to customers’ positive feedback, thus making the experience even more personal! People want to be seen to feel appreciated.

Increase Self-Service

Let’s face it, nowadays people like self-sufficiency and doing things on their own. This generation wants instant results and doesn’t feel like waiting around, and we don’t blame them! No one wants to wait to make a purchase anymore or talk to someone over the phone for transactions to get done. Once you increase self-sufficiency online, your customers will be more willing to purchase and use your products or service! 

Why do you think Amazon is so successful? It’s because it’s easy and convenient. They save your card information and allow you to organize your cart easily – all you have to do is click a button to make your purchase.

Self-checkout is a must in today’s digital world, so start with having that on your website and even in stores. Give buyers the option to save their credit card to make the next checkout even easier. Or, use chat boxes on your site to help them if they’re too busy or antisocial to call (let’s be real, talking to someone over the phone can be a daunting task, especially for the introverts out there). Whatever it may be, just make sure to give your customers a way to do things on their own – they’ll love the time it saves! 

Make Privacy and Protection a Priority

As we said earlier, customers are willing to share their personal information when they know they get a more personalized experience in return. They also are willing to share information because they believe companies will protect that information and use it for the right purposes. So, your brand needs to keep that promise and make privacy a priority.

There are many online privacy laws and rules that companies in Canada must follow when it comes to their digital spaces. The most recent one announced on November 17th, 2020, is Bill C-11, the Consumer Privacy Protection Act. This law was put in place to “protect the personal information of individuals while recognizing the need of organizations to collect, use or disclose personal information in the course of commercial activities.” 

It’s privacy laws like this that shape how companies collect their customes’ data moving forward. Make sure you are up to date with these changing laws and regulations, so your customers feel safe with your brand and have a better digital experience.

Simply put, always follow the guidelines and regulations. But, also look out for software updates, as those are focusing on privacy as well. For example, Apple’s iOS 14 update focused mainly on privacy and data issues, affecting Facebook ads the most. You can discover how to optimize your app and webpage for this update if you click here. Building a seamless digital experience takes a lot of brainstorming, action, and effort. You want to be the brand that goes above and beyond – we know you can do it!

Contact UV Designs

Providing the best customer experience in this ever-evolving digital world can become challenging, but with it comes brand loyalty, word-of-mouth marketing, and a significant increase in sales. If you’re still not sure how you can enhance your brand’s digital customer experience, don’t worry because we can do it all for you! 

At UV Designs, we help your business capitalize and succeed in the digital world, delivering a world-class experience for you and your clients. Contact us today at 647.478.4938 and stay tuned for our next blog!