5 Reasons Why Customer Interaction is Crucial for Ecommerce in 2017

The number of customers who are looking for ways to quench their shopper’s thirst online is growing exponentially, along with the number of e-commerce businesses. In order to attract more customers to their online shops, these businesses have developed many strategies One of those strategies includes methods to improve customer interaction which has been recognized crucial for e-commerce success in 2017. If you are wondering why, here are 5 reasons to help you see the full picture and understand the importance of interacting with online customers.

They Expect an Interaction to Happen

Did you know that 83% of online shoppers admit that they need some form of support during their online purchasing journey.

Since we live in a customer-centric era, e-commerce business has to their best to discover the trends in customers’ expectations, if they want to succeed in this oversaturated and volatile market. Building a detailed buyer and negative personas for your business is simply not enough. You have to engage in conversation with your customers and prospects, use the latest web technologies, like advanced live chat software and analytics, to identify trends and to custom tailor the experience for each shopper individually.

So, the first reason why you should enable communication with your online customers is that they expect it. This is why you can see many successful e-commerce businesses utilizing the live chat software in order to enable their customers to communicate with support agents as soon as they arrive on the e-commerce website.

It Will Increase Customer Satisfaction

Since the customers are the ones responsible for fueling any business, they have to be satisfied with all aspects of your online store. So, delivering a great product or service to them is not nearly enough to cut it. Customer satisfaction has become paramount to any online business success and one way to improve it is by keeping the lines of communication between your business and customers open.

While building your customers persona can give you an insight into what your customers expect and need from, you only direct interaction with them can give you the true vision that you can act upon. In the online industry, customer happiness is crucial for success and this is exactly why you should do everything in your power to make them as happy as possible.

Customer Interactions Will Motivate your Employees

Doing business with no face to face experience is a daunting task. For employees working in online establishments, it is hard to develop relationships with customers and vice versa. We already said that interaction will make customers more happy and satisfied but it will also motivate your employees.

The satisfaction and motivation that come on payday are not enough to keep employees happy. This will also affect employee turnover in an e-commerce business. This is why interaction with customers has to be established early on. Customer support agents will be able to meet the customers and learn from their interactions.

By successfully implementing this knowledge to resolve problems more quickly, your customer support agents will be engaged in their work and stay motivated to deliver even better results.  When the contribution is perceived as direct instead of indirect, employees can better relate to it.

Improved Sales

Direct interaction with customers can lead to improved sales numbers. The first documented success of such efforts dates back to 2008. When Wells Fargo tried for the second time to increase sales by communicating with customers on their website, their report clearly stated that their profit was increased by double-digits while the customer satisfaction numbers spiked way above the expected amount.

This method is more than valid even in 2017. Customers are tech savvy and they know how to use web apps. If you make yourself present and offer assistance to walk them through a sale, you will minimize bounces and ensure that there are no shopping carts abandoned.

Interacting with e-commerce customers in real time also enables you to upsell products. The customers can easily relate to agents who will guide them through this process and are open for advice and recommendations for additional purchases.

Interaction is Crucial for Ecommerce Digital Marketing Success

Since online shops operate in the digital realm, they have to rely on digital marketing methods to establish a better position in the market. With this in mind, it is very important to rely on Social Media Marketing to boost customer advocacy and new sales.

There are almost 2.5 billion active social media users. Tapping into social media is an opportunity every e-commerce business should seize in order to engage the audience and drive more traffic to its e-commerce website.

These are the top reasons why customer interaction is crucial for e-commerce in 2017. By taking a look at current digital marketing trends, it is safe to assume that interaction with clients can only become more important. And we can already see many e-commerce businesses starting to use chatbots in order to be available for their customers around the clock and on any device.

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