Setting up an online business once was a long and drawn out process. Now an entrepreneur can easily set up a business website within a matter of minutes.
Once the business website is up and running attracting customers and retaining customers in the long-run is not such an easy task. There will be a lot of one-time customers especially for internet entrepreneurs.
Their first experience with an organization will determine whether they will make a repeat purchase. For entrepreneurs who fail to deliver a positive customer experience, the number of customers the business has will start to dwindle. Let us look at some of the ways an online business can attract and retain customers.
Considering Customer’s Perspective:
The contents of your website should not be like trying to buy dissertation online. It should actively consider the needs of the customer. Try to design contents in a story writing fashion. Associate appropriate images and contents related to a specific product after identifying the customer’s needs.
Guide the customer based on their needs to the best quality product. Show the customer more inexpensive items if they fail to make a purchase. On the main page show all the products and services regardless of price. Organize the products and services based on category for the convenience of the customer.
Motivate Customer Interaction:
One of the best ways to encourage customers to keep coming back is to maintain customer profiles. Provide the opportunity to a customer create a free profile at the time of making their first purchase. Take the entire customer’s demographic information so that the customer can be identified the second time they make a purchase.
The option to create an account should be placed conveniently before completing the first purchase. The customer will have the convenience of not having to enter all their information once again just to make a purchase the second time. Acquire the customer’s consent to receive information on the latest deals and discounts.
Avoid Overly Complicated Contents:
Some websites have excessively complicated designs and graphics. These animations and visuals may seem quite impressive to the owner of the website. But if they are not streamlined with the needs of the user they will always be counterproductive. Every page should have a main theme.
This main theme should be directly related to the main call to action for the user. Presenting information on several different issues at once on the same page will be a very unproductive design in terms of the customer. The main theme of a page should be distinct from all other pages.
Administer 24-7 Customer Support:
This is one of the easiest ways to gain either popularity or a bad reputation with customers depending on the service. Always try to give your customer support agents friendly first names which are easily understandable by your target customers.
For example, avoid giving customer support agents hard to pronounce exotic names if you are targeting a market in the US. The customer support needs to be concerned with administering solutions for customers. Try to hire agents who speak the same native language as your potential clients. This will make communication easier for the customer.
Endorse Multiple Payment Options:
This is one of the main reasons customers do not return to a website. Internet security is no laughing matter. Not all consumers will be willing to trust their banking information to a website they have little knowledge of, regardless of the dire need of the product. Any website which caters to more than one mode of payment is automatically ranked higher by users.
Avoid linking payment options directly to user accounts. This will make users wary of security implications of such a setup. Avoid having blocks of red bold text pop-up just because a customer entered some information incorrectly. The best way is to reconfirm all information before processing the final payment.
