As a business owner, there are so many important elements of your company that you need to keep a handle on, and while this feeling of seeing the bigger picture is a challenge at times, you know that, overall, you will see a considerable return on investment. Because the leap from a brick-and-mortar location to online is something that many people are doing to save money, getting an idea of how this can positively impact your business is vital. But, the difficulty in taking that leap is something that can be felt in relation to the human side of business dealings. Working with your customers to ensure a healthy and symbiotic relationship is an ongoing task. This is why, if you are trying to save money by making your e-commerce business online only, you need to ensure it’s as human as possible. How can you do this?
User-Friendliness
Above all else, your website needs to be as user-friendly as possible. This may sound like common sense, but you would be very surprised as to how many websites forgo this all-important approach. Granted, budgetary constraints can mean that you aren’t able to update your website as often as you’d like, but the most important thing to consider when it comes to user-friendliness is to get the opinions of people on the ground floor. It’s very easy, if you supervised the outlay of the website, for you to justify why things are in a certain place. But this is why you have to see it from the perspective of the customer. Your site needs to have a layout that naturally leads from one aspect to another. Consider it the equivalent of aisles in a store, where everything is set up to lead customers down a certain route. That age-old approach of leaving candy by the checkout is something that immediately springs to mind. Laying out your website in a manner that is easy to use, but is also able to guide customers gently down a certain direction, is a very difficult thing to get right. Customer research is always a useful option because you can get valid opinions. And this needs to be part and parcel of your customer engagement experience. But so many businesses do it now, so if you aren’t already getting feedback, make it a priority.
The Feeling Of Security
Because a website is, in so many ways, a faceless entity, customers can feel like they are not having their needs met. Customers want to feel like they are being looked after, and if you can embody this in your website, you will have succeeded in so many ways. Now, with the increase in cybercrime, malware, and computer viruses, customers are more reticent than ever to input their card details, especially on an e-commerce site that they know nothing about! So, by communicating as part of your experience that you are taking every possible approach to protect your customers’ sensitive information, this provides that additional peace of mind. This can be done by implementing specific processes, especially in relation to the gateway part of the website, where customers pay by card. Resources such as BlueSnap are invaluable, especially for those e-commerce businesses that are still trying to find their feet, but don’t necessarily have the technical knowledge to back it up just yet. We hear so often about data breaches, and if you think that you are not going to be targeted because your business is too small, think again! In fact, you need to take more of an active interest in protecting your business than larger companies, because you have so much more to lose. If your customers don’t feel secure in their purchases and their experience online with you, they will never come back.
Detail In Your Products
Because you are trying to compensate for a lack of human help, you need to make sure that your products and descriptions are as detailed as “humanly” possible. You need to give your customers as much information as possible so they can make their own decisions as to whether they want to buy the item or not. It doesn’t just include the necessary details, such as size and measurements, but the photography needs to be clear, and the information needs to be consistent with the tone of voice. Tone of voice is essential, not just in terms of your product descriptions, but how you communicate yourself in every single way, through emails, and every form of communication.
Having Human Workers On Standby
And now, one of the most vital aspects of any e-commerce site is having a human to speak to should there be any issues. Many e-commerce sites have a chat box, as well as a contact telephone number. While you are doing your best to move the business online, to save on hiring human workers, you still need to have a human contingent available. It’s important to remember, people still want to speak to a real human being from time to time. And in fact, there are many businesses making necessary changes to ensure that they have a physical location. This isn’t realistic for the vast majority of us, and this is why we need to make our digital interface as realistic as possible. So by having a core group of human workers available to deal with specific problems, this doesn’t just give peace of mind for yourself, but your customers will appreciate you more for it.
The major difficulty in embodying a humanistic approach to a business that is exclusively digital is something that every young company is fighting with. And while there are more methods that are aiming to bridge the gap between the human customer and the digital business, it’s still about maintaining that human presence. The big mistake most businesses make when trading exclusively online is that they hide behind their computer screen to an extent. Instead, by being front and center, and providing that human approach, it is one of the best methods to ensure that you maintain a consistently real image in light of a digital interface.