Customer experience is a crucial factor that can make any business grow. For a regular business, customer experience has a considerable effect on sales. In the case of the e-commerce industry, this effect gets doubled. In this digital world, there are many platforms which help customers to raise their voice against a product or a brand. A report by Forbes, 50 Stats That Prove The Value Of Customer Experience clearly explains the relation between company growth and customer experience. Customers tend to leave reviews for the products they have bought and used. First-time buyers who are planning to buy the same set of products have access to these reviews that are already left by the people who have used it. According to a report by the 2014 State of B2B Procurement Study, 94 percent of B2B buyers report that they conduct some form of online research before purchasing a business product.
The general tendency of customers is to highlight the issues of a product, and when social media is providing a platform to do so, the chances are that these issues get amplified. E-Commerce giants such as Amazon have emphasized the importance of customer experience. Whether a customer buys your product, leaves a review or express about your company socially, there is always an emotional state connected with these actions.
Customer sentiments can be pleasant, loving, angry, or neutral. Analyzing these sentiments plays a vital role in today’s e-commerce industry. These sentiments can be analyzed to understand whether your customers are happy with your product or not. Three crucial sets of data can be obtained by analyzing these sentiments, and they are:
- Customer loyalty – How loyal your customers are towards your product, or will they recommend the product to their friends or families.
- Customer satisfaction – whether they are satisfied with your product
- Engagement intent – How likely they will engage with your products again.
These three sets of data can give valuable information for your marketing team to plan their strategy. To analyze customer sentiments much efficiently, customer segmentation can be put into use. Customer segmentation is the process of grouping customers who have same kind of interest or behavior. There are some criteria based on which customer segmentation can be made possible.
How to increase customer experience by making use of customer segmentation?
Customers can be grouped considering various factors. Sentiments of each group of customers can then be analyzed, and necessary actions can be taken to improve their experience. An article by Forbes, Prioritize Your Customer Segmentation In Digital Marketing Campaigns puts more light into the importance of customer segmentation in marketing campaigns. By grouping the customers to the following segments can make it easier to improve CX(customer experience)
- Heavy spenders – It is useful to group customers who tend to spend a lot on your products. These are a group of customers who prefer your products to all other competitors. It would be wise to make these groups of customers happy by communicating with them occasionally and should always listen to their opinions. Giving early access to new products or by providing special offers to them is some of the ways by which these groups of customers can be made happy.
- There are some groups of people who are one time buyers. These kinds of people are those who prefer to buy things only when needed. The review they leave will be genuine. It would be nice to give cashback or discount options for their 2nd purchase. The aim of all of these should be to make them buy again from you. By doing so, customers will start believing in you and will eventually begin to purchase from you.
- Grouping customers by location – By giving notifications to customers living in a particular region about the products suitable for that region is one way by which customer experience can be improved. This method is used by almost all e-commerce giants to make customers happy and make them buy their products.
- Idle customers- There might be people who used to buy from your site previously but have been idle for a few months. It would be good for you to bring them back. They might have left due to several reasons, and it is your responsibility to bring them back who was once your loyal customers. Based on their order history, ask them to give feedback, or you can offer a new model of something they have bought previously. By conducting a survey to identify why they left and what will it take to get them back. By engaging more with customers, they would feel like you care for them, and chances are that they would come back.
- Grouping customers based on their reviews – Some people might have bought your product but is not satisfied with it. On the other hand, there will be some people who will be very much satisfied or neutral customers. To improve the customer experience and your brand reputation, you should always listen to the concerns of your customers. In today’s world, companies who tend to listen to their customers would end up winning. Use customer support executives to communicate with those people who are giving negative feedback. Assure them that you will solve their concern as early as possible. Gradually convert those customers to your loyal fans. Take time to convey your gratitude to customers who left positive feedback also, so that they will buy from you next time too.
Apart from all these, there are numerous ways by which customer experience can be improved such as,
- Provide customized experience to customers. Each customer will be unique in having their interests. Showing pages that the customers can relate based on their interests would be appreciated. It would help to improve their experience and can benefit you as well in the long run.
- Make use of social media- With today’s generation very much active in social media sites, it is advised to make use of social media to engage with customers. This can be critical in the success of your business. Make use of advertisements to target a group of people to whom your product will appeal.
- Provide the right quality products- If you are not providing excellent quality products, no strategies can save you. Ultimately everything depends on the quality of the product you give. Even if it costs a bit, customers will be ready to spend if the product is of superior quality.
In today’s socially active world, people are very much eager to share their opinion about your products. These reviews can affect the reputation of your brand. Companies should work hard to earn a good reputation among the people who follow social media. Social media can play a crucial factor in customer sentiment analysis and improving customer experience. The moto every company should follow must be “Transparency”. It means companies should be open to criticism and feedback. Companies who respect their customers will eventually win.
Sandra Moraes is the Content Management Specialist at Datahut. Professionally she is a Data Scientist and researched Data Analytics. She authored on Data Science and Customer relationship.