5 Ways To Personalize The Customer Experience

Having outstanding customer service is no longer an option; it's a total necessity!

No one wants to feel like another figure on a spreadsheet.

Your customers aren't robots - they are everyday people.

So, they have good days and bad days, just like you.

Currently, customers have a large number of choices when it comes to eCommerce stores - they can pick from at least 2 vendors who offer a similar collection, comparable prices, and the same payment options.

The only difference that allows businesses to stand out from all the others is the customer experience.

Personalization is the key factor in delivering this kind of attentive customer service and can offer your business an advantage in today's crowded marketplace.

In fact, following recent research that was conducted by Forrester, around 77% of consumers have chosen, supported, or paid more for a brand that provides a personalized service or experience.

But isn't this something that most businesses are aware of?

Well, yes it is, but not a lot of them really utilize this in their plans.

In our article, we will be looking at the top 5 ways to personalize the customer experience on your own.

Let's not waste any more valuable time and jump straight in!

5 Ways To Personalize The Ecommerce Customer Experience

In this video, I'll be showing you 5 ways you can personalize your customer experience.

1. Displaying Personal Recommendations

In order to improve customer interest, be sure to employ product suggestions based on their history - what kind of things they usually search for, which category they visit the most, and what are their recently viewed products.

Displaying Personal Recommendations

There are several different ways to make suggestions, based on various algorithms:

Recommend products based on their online browsing history

The first way that you can perform this is by displaying suggested products based on their current or past browsing session.

As a result, the shoppers will see the products they have searched for recently and will feel more inclined to purchase them right now.

Suggest products based on similar customers

The second method is to show products that other similar customers also liked or purchased.

With the assistance of a Machine Learning tool, you will be able to fully automate this process.

Suggest products based on a buyer's shopping history

You will be able to offer similar products (in terms of style, colors, or categories) based on a buyer's shopping history, which is particularly efficient for fashion, cosmetics, jewelry, etc.

However, just remember this technique won't work in industries such as automotive, electronics, or home appliances.

For instance, if someone buys a dishwasher, chances are they won't look for another dishwasher for a long period of time.

So, rather than showing options for dishwashers, present them with dishwasher detergent or accessories.

The same goes for the electronics space.

Rather than showing similar phones based on what the user purchased, offer them headphones, protective cases, or any other attachments.

Show the best-selling products

The last thing that you can do is to show all the best-selling products on your website.

Generally, this works very well!

People don't want to be left out (FOMO), so they start to think, "if a large number of people purchase that specific product, then I should too."

Therefore, this particular tactic will motivate buyers to browse and often purchase products that are popular even though they don't really need them.

It's especially effective in fashion and home furnishings.

There are a ton of personalization apps available that you can use to help you implement the tips above!

2. Personalize Your Emails

There are over 3.9 billion daily email users around the entire world!

This gives businesses the perfect opportunity to connect with their audience.

But, how can you stand out in your subscriber's inboxes?

Well, the answer to this is personalization.

Personalized Emails

While it's clearly not practical to send personally written emails to everyone on your subscriber list, it's certainly possible to separate them into different segments and infuse relevance into your targeted messages.

This means that you will need to find the ideal balance between automation and personalization.

In order for this technique to work, make sure that you ask your subscribers detailed questions in the sign-up forms and employ this valuable information for segmenting.

There are various ways that you can do this.

You can ask about their:

location
name,
birth date,
or the type of products the person is particularly interested in.

After you have the details collected, you will be able to send the following emails.

Welcoming subscribers to newsletters

Research shows that human brains respond differently when they hear their own names.

This could explain why consumers feel more valued and fancy brands that refer to them by their initial name.

The best way that you can do this is by sending a little "welcome" message to all the buyers that signed up for your newsletter.

Here's an example of how that email should look like:

Thanks (name of the buyer) for subscribing to our newsletter. We're looking forward to building a long relationship with you!
Best regards,
(your brand's name.)

Thanking buyers for making a purchase

Another great way that you can personalize your emails is by thanking the buyer for making a purchase.

This way, your customers will feel special and more likely to make another purchase on your site.

Here's how that email may look:

Thanks (name of the buyer) for purchasing (name of the product).
Best regards,
(your brand's name.)

Reminding purchasers that they have products in their checkout cart

There are a lot of buyers that actually forget to make the final purchasing decision.

So the best way to prevent this is by reminding them that they have products in their checkout carts.

You can even tell them that they are on a massive discount to make it more appealing.

Here's how this email should look:

Hey (name of the buyer),
There are a couple of products sitting on your cart. We just wanted to remind you that they are on discount in the next 24 hours.
Want to close the deal now?
Go to your checkout cart (link the checkout cart) and make the purchase!
Best regards,
(your brand's name.)

Wishing them a "Happy Birthday"

The last thing you can do is wish them a "Happy Birthday."

This can greatly surprise your customer and they will feel pretty excited that their favorite store remembered their birthday date.

You can also hook them up with a small discount code for an even better customer experience.

Here's an example of that email:

Hey (name of the buyer),
Happy birthday. We hope your celebration gives you many happy memories!
For your big day, we've decided to give you a 5% discount code on the whole assortment. Make sure to use it for 24 hours!
BDAY 5% OFF
Best regards,
(your brand's name.) Check out these loyalty and customer retention apps that will give your customer's bonus points to spend on their birthday!

3. Understand What Your Customers Want

The third personalization strategy is to recognize what your customers want.

Each buyer will have a particular set of requirements and opinions.

Make sure that you read all the customer reviews (both positive and negative) carefully and see what they really want and how you will be able to improve.

Their feedback and recommendations can take your customer service techniques forward in leaps and bounds.

Also, if you can make sure that you reply to each customer review - even though you might have a lot of them - customers will really value that you care for their feedback.

To make this a lot easier for you, we strongly suggest that you install a customer review app so that you can easily review and manage your reviews.

One of the best and top-rated review apps is Fera.ai.

It has a ton of features available and lets you seamlessly integrate it into your Shopify store or Wix website.

Try Fera Reviews for Free

4. Provide Customers With Multiple Service Channels

The next action that you should take in order to improve your customer's experience is to provide them with great support.

In fact, over 30% of all the customers instantly switch companies after 1 instance of poor customer service.

Customers want to choose what type of channel they receive support.

So, in order for this to work, you will need to set up multiple service channels.

Some of your customers might prefer getting help through a live chat, while others might want to do it the old-fashioned way by calling through the official phone line.

Nevertheless, providing fast, convenient support experiences on the channels your customers favor is key to great support.

Customer Support

Here are some of the most popular channels that you should have:

Email - There's no doubt, this is the most popular digital channel for customer support. Over 54% of all the shoppers around the world have demanded customer service through email. So you should definitely have this setup!
Social Messengers - Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are the second most popular channels right now. Messaging is undoubtedly the top habit on smartphones. Making yourself available to reply to questions on the platform where your customers spend most of their time can significantly decrease disruption to their lives.
Real-Time Chat - Implementing real-time chat support on your site can definitely assist all your buyers during the entire shopping experience. In fact, 73% of customers find real-time chat to be one of the most pleasant ways to interact with a business.
Online Self-Service - This is generally a pretty effective service, but most businesses avoid it because it can unquestionably cost a lot of money.
Phone - While the phone continues to be an essential channel for special occasions and within particular demographics, most of the younger population have rejected using phone calls altogether. Over 59% of purchasers would preferably go through extra channels to contact customer service rather than communicate using their voice.

The more you have, the better.

But don't worry, you won't need to implement every single channel on your website.

Just make sure that you have some of the most requested ones - this can vary from one business to another and can depend on the audience you have.

5. Create Specific Homepages

The final thing that you should do in order to enhance your customer's experience is to create a personalized homepage.

This sort of personalization is mainly intended for all the users that are registered on the website.

The first way that you can do this is by highlighting the name of the user.

For instance, the homepage should display something like this - Good Morning (customer's name) or Hey (customer's name).

Moving down, you can also highlight offers and products that will most likely catch the interest of your customers.

The offers on the personalized homepage can include things like one-time promotions or recommendations based on previous purchases.

You can present personalized banners as well.

For instance, you will be able to display "For Men" or "For Women" interactive banners (depending on your customer's gender) to immediately catch their attention.