Want to join the ranks of big brands like Heinz, BBC, Allbirds, and Gymshark? Well, if you’re powering your ecommerce store with Shopify, you’re already on the right track.
But that’s just the beginning. If you aspire to grow your Shopify store, you can’t just sit back, run ads, and simply hope the sales come rolling in. You have to set yourself apart from hundreds and thousands of competitors, no matter your niche or market.
The best way to do it? Offer a personalized customer experience (CX).
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Personalized experiences outperform other tactics to increase sales
Think about your own shopping habits. Do you want to be treated like a number? Or do you prefer brands who greet you by name and understand your preferences? Hopefully the answer is obvious, but if not, it’s personalization that holds the key to growing a Shopify store.
The good news is—you already have the customer data. So use it to your advantage. The biggest retailers in the world do, and they’ve got the results to show for it.
Take Amazon for example. According to McKinsey, up to 35 percent of Amazon purchases come from recommendations. And that’s all done programmatically. Imagine what would happen with an added human touch.
If it all still feels rather far-fetched, know that it’s consumers asking for this personalization. The chart below shows that 30 percent of consumers say that being informed about new and useful products or services directly impacts their likelihood of becoming a repeat customer.
Recommendations aren’t the only way to customize interactions with your Shopify store though. The chart also shows that personal relationships and fast, friendly interactions leave a lasting impression. That means how your agents interact with customers can have a big impact on sales and lifetime value.
Now that you’ve seen the value in personalization, here are our favorite ways to deploy it and increase sales on Shopify.
Your Shopify store can be much more than a point of sale; it can be an experience. Check out this podcast to hear about ecommerce trends and how to power up your Shopify brand.
Add live chat + connect other channels
It’s 2020. No one wants to send an email to a generic address for support. In fact, 90 percent of customers expect an "immediate" response—with 60 percent defining immediate as less than 10 minutes. By adding live chat to your Shopify store, you’ll not only satisfy customer support expectations, you’ll increase sales by cutting down on cart abandonment as well. Live chat can help mitigate cart abandonment in key areas like account creation, complicated checkouts, website errors, and credit cards getting declined.
You may also want to bring all of your communication channels together in one place. This keeps your team connected with customers through their preferred route, giving them the power of choice. It also empowers your team to respond quickly and efficiently, especially when you pull all channels into a unified view.
Now, once you’ve expanded the ways customers can connect with you, you’ll need to make sure you have the answers they’re looking for, and most often, it’s to do with order information.
Make it easy for everyone to view order details
Whether you’re a one-person shop or a team of hundreds, make it easy for your chat agents to quickly view order history, cart contents, shipping details, and other important information. With the Acquire + Shopify integration, all it takes is a few clicks in the conversation timeline to see a customer’s shopping activity and current cart contents.
Your customers will also want access to this information—without talking to an agent. Our Shopify widget app allows them view their order status, shipping updates, and more, all in a few simple clicks. Even better, chatbots can be programmed to serve up this information as soon as someone types “Where is my order?” or any other relevant questions into the chat.
Adding to the experience, agents can submit an order right from Acquire, making it even easier to help customers complete a purchase. Now that’s white-glove service.
Related: Your Ecommerce Information Center: Get free educational resources to help you grow your brand and forge strong customer relationships.
Create a memorable digital experience
Have you thought about how customers interact with your brand before they click “Add to Cart”? The actual online shopping experience doesn’t have to only be human-to-screen. Imagine if it were human-to-human, with a screen in between to showcase the product. That’s what cobrowsing and video live chat bring to ecommerce.
Cobrowsing allows your agents to walk customers through your site, highlighting new releases, ongoing sales, or specific products they’re looking for, like cashmere or angora sweaters. When you layer this with one- or two-way video, it closely mimics the in-store experience and quickly increases the customer’s trust in your brand.
Short on agents? Program a chatbot to offer a similar concierge experience. Begin by asking “What are you shopping for today?” and add progressive questions and webpage redirects to help customers find the perfect item. Chatbots also offer a fun opportunity to surprise and delight with secret discounts tied to phrases like “It’s my birthday” or “I’m shopping for a mother’s day gift”.
“I. Love. That. Bot.” — Norm Alegria, Director of Guest Care at The Dufresne Group Read the case study →
In both cases, you can also apply strategic upselling to increase cart size. You might consider items like gift wrapping, matching accessories, or items frequently bought together. If done right, your customers will be impressed by your recommendationsl rather than feeling like you’ve tried to empty their pockets.
These extra touches will take you from just another Shopify store to a top-of-mind brand with shoppers. And when you’re top of mind, word-of-mouth spreads, boosting sales even further.
Doubledown on email
Another great way to grow your Shopify store is by creating email campaigns. These campaigns can be super tailored using customer data, or more general—whichever works best for you. That being said, the types of emails you send has a direct impact on results. For example:
According to Barilliance, cart abandonment emails generate an 18.54 percent conversion rate. Compare that to emailing website visitors which converts at just 4 percent and you can see why email type matters. Having multiple email streams and campaigns for pre- and post-purchase is a wise idea, and it’s easy to personalize. Some email campaign ideas include:
- Back in stock alerts
- Price drops and sales
- New releases
- Influencer collaborations
There are a number of ways you can capture email addresses, but if you’re implementing a chat widget, it’s a great place to add a newsletter signup CTA.
Using personalization of the customer experience to grow your Shopify store may seem more difficult to set up than say, Facebook ads, but it’s going to pay off big time. Human touches like live chat offer a 73 percent customer satisfaction rate and make it convenient for customers to connect with your brand. Add in additional communication layers like video and cobrowse, and you’re sure to leave your customers wowed.
Ready to start growing your Shopify store?
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