Building an ecommerce website is a demanding job. It involves various elements and decisions that need to come together at the right time.
Talented professionals – better technology tools – UX design expertise are just a few examples from the series of arrangements required to meet the industry competition.
Without a correct project framework in place, it can be very difficult to meet the client expectations.
The truth is, most service providers try to get away with just being average. But an average business effort produces mediocre eCommerce experience. Only the ones that take the challenge to exceed client expectation and put in a little extra effort, can break past mediocre and create an incredible store that reflects the personality of client’s business.
What Do Customers Expect?
Customers do not expect much. They want the core service of your business to meet their needs and justify the value for money.
If I buy an expensive umbrella I expect it to keep out the rain and sunlight and also look good. Naturally if I were to buy a cheaper one I wouldn’t expect it to last as long. I would also expect the post-sales service to be efficient. If the umbrella starts to leak on the first time, then I would expect the shop to replace it immediately.
However, none of this would make me a loyal customer or cause me to tell others how good the store was to replace the umbrella. I consider this as core service of any seller. I would not run around telling people that my umbrella didn’t leak.
Similarly, your customers also expect your service to represent value for money. Most of them are pretty reasonable with the technical deliverables. They are concerned more about a timely, friendly, and knowledgeable communication. They would also give more preference to a timely delivery and a reasonable post purchase support.
One of the reasons why most customers don’t expect too much is because not many companies take the time to raise the bar and let customers know what best they can get.
Let’s take a look at what the average consumer gets from a mediocre eCommerce solutions company.
A Website – Domain name – Secure shopping cart – Product catalog – Payment gateway – CRM – Email accounts – Marketing tools – Reporting – Mobile-optimized store
Delivering on such a demand is way too common and simpler now. Even the clients can themselves signup for a web store building software and start an online business without the need of any technical skills. Most of such software handles everything from marketing, payments, checkout to shipping with a single user friendly admin panel.
Exceed Customer Expectations
Whether your customer sells online, on social media, in store, or out of the trunk of your car, it is not much difficult to stand out, exceed the client’s expectations and offer something of more value.
For example: Get straight to growing your client’s business. Focus on the things your client would love to see. The best thing they would not be expecting is to have a web development company worry about anything that has to do with their eCommerce store. Rony, the business developer at mezzoseo.com says, “eCommerce store should be fully customized high-performing online store – Awesome Design – Adding more sales channels – Complete control over products and inventory – Fulfilling orders in a single step – Track sales and growth trends – Charging no sneaky add-on fees”
Deliver an ultimate website to your clients
When it comes to building retail store, it is imperative to match with new market technologies and trends to build, launch and grow a profitable ecommerce business.
Plan your eCommerce service focusing on both worldwide and local trends in the industry, technology and competition. Base all of your forecasts on a multipronged approach that focuses on client’s business vision, products, and trends in particular consumer behaviors. This would let you create a solution with great conversion rate, lower cart abandonment & especially that allows the client to fulfilling orders more efficiently.
It makes sense to understand all this by using a detailed questionnaire. Make sure not to overwhelm the client by suddenly dropping a mail asking for such in-depth information about his business. You might need to earn some confidence before the client feels confident in sharing the info and most importantly spending time to provide detailed and corrects inputs. Better be a part of the process and help client fill the questionnaire while meeting face to face or speaking over a phone.
Believe that standing out of the crowd isn’t all that difficult.
Most companies fail to visualize the customer’s reaction to their products and services. This is crucial for the long term success of the company, as how well the customer react emotionally to the service drives more business in the long run. The key point is to be in continuous touch with the client keeping track of their priorities and perceptions, because in service industry, Customer satisfaction is the only factor that defines the success of a project.