Digital customer experience: Make your online shoppers smile

Perception gap regarding customer experience

Due to the hype surrounding customer experience, more and more companies are beginning to implement optimization measures in this area. It is therefore understandable that, according to a study, 69% of marketers surveyed now believe that they provide their customers with an excellent customer experience. However, the situation is quite different from the customers' perspective. Only 22% feel that retailers understand them.³ The perception of companies thus differs greatly from that of customers. The reason for this is often that companies neither focus on the customer nor take the customer's perspective.

Consequences of negative customer experience for companies

It is therefore not surprising that many customers have already had a negative shopping experience. However, this can have far-reaching consequences for companies. According to studies, 63% of customers who have a bad experience leave the site. 17% even share their bad experience on social media or on the site itself.⁴ In times of referral marketing and word-of-mouth marketing, such behavior can be fatal and lead to a slump in sales.

Customer journey mapping as part of CXM

Customer journey mapping helps you identify all touchpoints between customers and your online store, thereby improving the customer experience and turning your online store into the point of decision. Customer journey mapping focuses on the user flow of a customer in the online store. This is examined from different perspectives in order to identify the relevant touchpoints. In doing so, you put yourself in the shoes of the target group, evaluate the various touchpoints, and visualize the customer journey. You can find more information about the procedure in our blog article: Customer journey mapping for identifying touchpoints in e-commerce.

Customer journey phases in which the digital customer experience can be optimized

Development of a digital customer experience strategy

During customer journey mapping, you identify the touchpoints in your online shop that lead to a negative customer experience. Now it's time to turn these weak points into positive shopping experiences. You can do this by developing a digital customer experience strategy, which you can incorporate into an action plan. The order in which you address the weak points depends on their impact on your online store. You should prioritize and sort the weak points, as you cannot address them all at once. Next, you need to find the right solution for the weak points and also include this in the action plan.

One weak point could be, for example, the search function in the online shop, which returns no results or incorrect results. The problem needs to be evaluated in detail. Important product attributes may be missing from the product catalog, or the necessary personalization may be lacking to respond accurately to the search query.

Once you're done, you'll have developed your customer experience strategy for creating positive shopping experiences along the digital customer journey and you'll be ready to get started.

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