Touchpoints and pain points in the customer journey

To understand an eCommerce customer journey, you should know the touchpoints and pain points in the journey.

Broadly, “Touchpoints” could be

• Product – Hardware, Software, Services
• Interactions – Phone calls, Websites, Blogs, Social Media, User Forums, etc.
• Messages/Communication: the brand, collaterals, advertising, packaging, etc.
• Settings (where the product is ‘ seen’ ) – the internet, the television, events, shows, etc.

Once you’ve understood the touch points, ask yourself:

• What action does the customer take at every stage or move onward?
• Is the customer motivated to go to the next stage?
• What are the uncertainties or other issues that the customer faces?
• What barriers or costs obstruct the customer’s moving to the next stage?

You would then understand that the “Pain points” in a customer’s eCommerce journey could be linked to the following spheres:

• Financial – how much money spent
• Productivity – what is the efficiency of the product/service
• Processes – how was the customer guided through the entire path of buying
• Support – are the customers getting enough support during their purchase and usage journey
• Communication – is the communication from various levels of the company, clear or disjointed
• Navigation & Checkout – what is the comfort & convenience of website navigation
• Multiple channels – is the movement from one channel to another smooth
• Tracking and delivery – how effortless was this process

When you can seamlessly coordinate & integrate these touchpoints and reduce pain points, you create a superior eCommerce customer journey experience.

Stages of the eCommerce customer journey

A typical journey for an eCommerce customer goes through these stages-

• Engaging through advertising or any other exposure to the brand
• Buying the product or service
• Using it
• Sharing the experience with others on social media or other platforms
• Completing the journey by replacing it or upgrading or choosing the competition

These stages are categorized into the following subheads. Look at the following table to understand more:

Understanding this entire journey helps a business understand the market, streamline the experience, reduce the customer pain points, set real & achievable goals, and build plans for the future.

How to Map the eCommerce Customer Journey?

Organizations who want to excel in customer management and relationships define their value propositions clearly across the touchpoints, emphasize innovation, and use metrics & mapping systems to ensure consistency of the brand experience. Mapping the eCommerce customer journey helps understand the experiences that customers have across touchpoints and the action or pain points that eventually drive an organizational decision-making process.

These are the steps you can take to map the customer journey:

1. Observe and list the TouchPoints.

Touchpoints are the interaction points between your brand and the customer. This could be before the purchase, during the process, and after the purchase. Identifying these is like taking the first step into your customer journey. If you can empathize with the customer and think of what you would do if you had a problem, how you would try & discover a solution, and how you would make your purchase decision, you will understand the ‘ touchpoints’ too.

2. Explore for data

Research, and collect information on your customers from all the possible touchpoints. This helps you understand your customer’s mindset and journey. Also, research the competition. Your data will come from your website, social media, and online surveys. Tracking your potential customer data helps you analyze the demographics and interests better.

3. Define Personas

For a successful e-commerce customer journey mapping, you need well-defined customer personas. A persona is a semi-imaginative character that you create to symbolize your customer segment. This gets built on the demographic background, personality, supposed lifestyle, and shopping choices, and preferably is based on the actual data collected through analytics or surveys. The traits you list combine to personify ‘ somebody’ (maybe with names too). When you are realistic about creating the personas corresponding to the customer segment, you can work that much better on improving their shopping experiences. Tools help you to create personas (e:g Hubspot).

4. Identify the Pain Points

Data from personas helps identify the pain points and decipher the gaps in the customer experience. What do your customers think at every stage, what questions do they ask regarding the brand, what actions do they take subsequently, their needs and expectations, and how their behaviour is affected by their emotions and goals?

Ask yourself how your brand will fulfil its expectations and what potential opportunities you can create for a better customer relationship. This will help you veer them towards the next step in the journey.

5. Set Goals:

List what you need from this eCommerce customer journey mapping process. Ask yourself the ‘why’ of your efforts. You should know why you are making this map, what the perspective is, and what experiences to consider. Research helps you stay ahead of your customer in assessing goals, pain points, and solutions.

6. Map the Journey

Armed with all the information from the above pointers; you can now visualize and map your eCommerce customer journey. You know the stages of the journey, and you know how to collect & analyze data at various stages.

Analysis helps you figure out the gaps and fill them with appropriate steps. Plus, the dynamics of customer behaviour teach you that the journey map could change with time too. Use Google Analytics, Heatmaps, and Surveys to understand the nuances of customer behaviour. Use effective CRM to understand customer behaviour for complex sales processes.

Making the customer journey more worthwhile,

eCommerce brands learn daily through their observations of customer behaviour and touchpoint analysis the more your observation, the sharper your analysis, and the better your support. eCommerce journey maps help you improve brand interaction, loyalty, and business. Undertaking the mapping is invaluable – and helps you set the path for the present – and future customer journeys.

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Customers everywhere support businesses that can create a personalized connection with them. A company that appeals to the individuality of its consumers shows that it respects its relationship beyond the sales transaction. Hence, personalization can be imperative for a business to gain and retain shoppers.

As a startup or an SME (small- or medium-sized enterprise), customizing the customer journey can be crucial to growth and development. Before delving into tips and techniques for the same, let’s review the advantages of incorporating personalization in your small business:

1. It improves the customer experience. A consumer with a great experience will give you a positive review, repeat sales, and an overall favorable brand image.
2. It increases brand loyalty. Buyers who have a strong connection with your brand are likely to stay committed and refer your business to their peers.
3. It gives you a competitive edge. In contrast to businesses that use cut-and-dry sales techniques, your business would be more appealing to people.
4. It revitalizes dead leads. For inactive leads, a personalized email can grab their attention and encourage them to reconsider a purchase.

Companies have begun to understand the importance of customization. However, there are some that are not doing it quite right. Many organizations are known to bombard their clients with emails and phones. Overdoing it can lead to the opposite of the effect you want. Let’s hash over some tips and tricks on how to effectively personalize your customer’s journey.

How to Personalise Consumer Experience as a Startup or SME?

As opposed to big corporations, startups, and SMEs need to work harder to build connections and a consumer base. The following points will elaborate on techniques that can be used by organizations to ensure that they provide a pleasurable experience. These tips and tricks will act as guidance to customized experiences from the purchase to the follow-up service:

1. Gather information about your consumer’s preferences

Information is key. The only way you can create products or present services that are to your buyer’s liking is by knowing what they like. Data mining and cookies are very common to accomplish this task. The former refers to analyzing large sets of data to identify patterns.

By doing so and using machine learning, you can recognize patterns in your client’s preferences. Cookies are small amounts of saved data on a Web browser. These usually retain information about the individual visiting the site.

Using artificial intelligence (AI), you can analyze these preferences and work on enhancing the user experience accordingly. The more you know about a client, the better you can tailor their options.

2. Conduct surveys for voluntary information

While cookies are a passive approach to understanding your client’s needs, surveys are direct. Mostly questionnaires, these allow your customers to volunteer details of what they are looking for.

According to their preferences, you can select or recommend the ideal product or service. Many organizations give their audience a survey section when they log in. Once the consumers have entered the data, they customize the recommendations accordingly. This ensures that the buyer is consistently presented with the most preferable choices.

Another method of conducting surveys is through IVR. An IVR (interactive voice response) system allows your users to provide their preferences through keyboard inputs on mobile or telephone.

3. Analyse the gathered data and make changes accordingly

Changes must constantly be made to keep your business popular and growing. Once you have understood the demographics of your buyers and their needs, you can start amending your existing list of services.

For example, if your client base is predominantly residing in India and the US, make sure that the prices of your products are available in both Rupees and US Dollars. Otherwise, clients will most likely not bother with conversions and just assume that you are a local company.

A simple gesture such as displaying varied currencies can encourage people to sign up for your business and also generate higher conversions.

4. Make recommendations according to customer likes and dislikes

When there are multiple options, chances are that people may get lost in a large catalog of varied products. Hence, when they first visit your company’s website, they might not know what exactly they require.

In such a situation, it is better to trust the expert: you. If you collect the details of their requests (as mentioned above) in a survey, you can narrow down what products are best suited to their requirements. Obviously, a human cannot do this for every single individual. An AI-powered system offered by many cloud technology firms can handle this task for thousands of people simultaneously if need be.

A recommendation is convenient for not only the client but also the organization. It reduces the chances of returns, complaints, and bad reviews. Your customer is satisfied, and it saves time and effort for both parties.

Many websites like to feature variations of People who bought this also liked this. This tactic is very effective in convincing a buyer to make multiple purchases. They may even be introduced to something brand new that they now wish to own.

5. Send personalized emails

An email is the go-to form of communication for professional relationships. It is the ideal method to avoid the invasion of privacy while contacting an individual. However, emails are also used for login details across all websites and applications. That means every inbox is chock-full of invitations, discounts, and updates by brands. How can you set your messages apart in this slew of threads? Two words: customer names.

People underestimate the power of addressing someone by their name. It makes any conversation more personal, intimate, and informal. By simply adding your shopper’s names to the greetings of the mail, you can create a bond with them and stand out. They are likely to check a thread with their name on it.

6. Follow up after purchase and ask for feedback

Old-school business people may believe that a sales transaction ends after the trade. However, that is not true for the current cultural and financial climate. To maintain a relationship with your customers, you must carry on communication in the future.

Several companies follow up using emails and messages by addressing consumers by name. This urges people to respond to the request. When you follow up, feedback must be noted. It is the ideal chance to understand how you can improve the buyer’s experience with the organization. By using emails, you allow buyers to give their opinions as an individual privately.

According to research by Microsoft in 2017, 77% of respondents admitted to having a favorable opinion of a company that asks for and acts on feedback. By requesting feedback, you gain valuable information and the trust of your leads.

You can also use cloud-based solutions for the purpose of feedback. Firstly, you can add an IVR menu at the end of service calls to gauge the experience with the customer service executive or to collect their ranking on the products and services they bought. Secondly, AI-powered chatbots that offer self-service menus can take quick feedback post customer service experiences. Cloud technology has made information gathering and analysis relatively easier.

7. Make them a part of the process

Build a community, not just a consumer base. Shoppers often rely on their peers while considering brands to buy from. And nothing impresses me more than a success story. Buyers are inspired and convinced by the positive experiences of those who have already been through the process once.

By adding your loyal purchaser’s stories to your website, advertisements, social media, or emails, you allow potential leads to be convinced by other buyers’ narratives. For example, a gym would post before and after workout pictures of its members to convince new people to join. The transformations would represent how effective services provided by the establishment happen to be.

These transformations and quotes exude authenticity as the featured customers have little to no personal agenda or underlying objective to achieve, the only reason being a genuinely good experience.

8. Offer personalized discounts and updates

The last step of the journey is to find ways to make customers keep coming back. By offering them personalized discounts, you can let them know that loyalty is rewarded by your brand. Furthermore, you could also offer updates regarding new products that they might be interested in or out-of-stock goods that they have previously checked out.

Picture this: a shopper recently bought a dog leash from your website but could not get their hands on your coveted name tags. You could add a checkbox that would promise them a notification in case the latter comes back in stock.

In a couple of months when the store is restocked, you can notify them and also include a recommendation of your newly launched dog food that complements their former purchase.

Conclusion

A shopper’s journey, from the identification of a need to purchase and loyalty, is much longer than they realize. By including personalization every step of the way, you are cultivating a relationship between the brand and the buyer.

The process is advantageous to both parties the customer is satisfied and well-served, and the business is rewarded with loyalty and profits. In a world where social media and globalization are knitting everyone’s lives together, you can no longer afford to alienate your consumers as mere transactions. Create the best experience for your clients by taking simple measures and advancing your operations.

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The post Why Startups and Small Businesses Need to Personalise Customer Experience? appeared first on Tricky Enough.

Clients go through 5 stages while making purchases. It is worth to analyze them all in order to create a customer journey map and to eliminate problems encountered by e-clients once they enter the site of your online store. The customer journey allows an owner of a store to check whether clients are loyal to the brand, whether they buy in the store on a regular basis, which communication channels they come from and in what way the brand keeps in touch with them. In the Customer Journey Mapping for eCommerce article, you can read about how to create such a map.

5 shopping steps of an e-consumer

What are the individual steps which clients take in order to make a purchase? These are awareness, thinking, purchase, keeping, satisfaction. All 5 steps are extremely important ─ although the last two are steps taken after the purchase has been made.

Awareness

Awareness is a step in which customers discover a product and the need to own it is born inside them. At this stage, customers look for information about that product. Therefore, it is worth to take care of good online visibility so that consumers can find your store right away.

Thinking

At this stage, e-consumers are sure that they want a particular product. Therefore, they are looking for it and compare online offers. Visibility of the brand on the Internet, but also price, delivery time or opinions can decide whether clients buy a given product. You need to make sure that the site is UX, but also that e-consumers see characteristics of a product right away – including its strong points.

Purchase

The purchase stage appears when e-consumers make a decision and makes a purchase. You can make it easier for them, by taking care of UX of your site and by simplifying the purchase step as much as possible on your site. Do not let this process be slowed down by the way your site looks, make sure that all information is communicated in a clear and transparent way. You should also enable users to pay with the quick transfer or with their smartphones.

Keeping

This is a part of the post-sale service. If you want to make sure your clients are satisfied, and to make them loyal to your brand and to return to you in the future, keep in touch with them. But don’t be pushy − you can use a newsletter for that purpose, a questionnaire that tests the level of satisfaction of a customer or remarketing.

Satisfaction

Make sure that customers are satisfied with purchases they made on your site and that they recommend it to others. Take care of a professional and quick post-warranty service – thanks to that you will improve the image of the brand and you can persuade other e-consumers who are at the second step of their purchase decision to choose you.

Take care of your clients before they become ones

Remember that consumers do not differentiate between online and offline shopping. That is the reason why so many people decide to sell their products mainly via the Internet. E-commerce has been growing in force and winning the products’ market much quicker that one could expect ─ if you do not want to fall behind you need to attract clients and encourage them to buying, but you also should remember about staying in touch with them and using 1:1 marketing.

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