Since the pandemic, we’ve seen an even greater shift to online spending. With customers interacting via web, mobile, voice, digital, and email, companies have the opportunity to capitalize on data and analytics to improve their performance. Omnichannel digital experiences open the door to creating a seamless customer journey across all platforms. Crafting an omnichannel experience creates a smooth journey for the customer, no matter their interface or touch point.
But for your omnichannel experience to be successful, it must be personalized. Research suggests that personalization drives a 10 to 15% revenue lift, however depending on sector and execution, that figure can be up to 25%. Harnessing and leveraging customer data and deploying the right technology for your goals are the first two steps to creating a personalized eCommerce platform for an omnichannel digital experience.
Also read: Build A Robust Online Marketplace with These 3 Best Practices
Tips for Personalizing eCommerce Platforms: Data and Data Analytics
Data and analytics are key to personalizing an eCommerce platform. Data needs to be accurate and clean for precise predictions. With the use of machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP), AI-driven personalization enables companies to connect with their customers on a deeper level by personalizing their marketing messages, products, and services.
Real-time data is essential for a personalized experience. Real-time data gives valuable insight as to the needs and behaviors of customers. One study suggests that companies using real-time data can realize a higher ROI, seeing as much as a $20 return for every $1 spent. Thus, companies can better understand their customers at every stage of their journey, from entry to exit.
By leveraging data, online retail stores can compile customer profiles which help to create relevant personal experiences. These profiles along with data collected during an online visit—product pages viewed, cart additions, previous purchases, etc.—enable companies to make recommendations for purchase. This information allows companies to send triggered, personalized messages at the right time during the customer journey. These messages can be subtle including information about adding items to cart or information about the check-out process, but what they do is engage the buyer, helping to get them to make a purchase decision.
For example, a prospective customer has made previous site visits and added items to their cart but did not complete their purchase. To help convert that sale, retailers can study that customer journey and profile to send a data-driven personalized email offering a discount on the items of interest. Normally, the prospective customer is sent a discount code that can be used online at time of purchase.
Tips for Personalizing eCommerce Platforms: Choosing the Right Technology
Leveraging consumer data is key to personalizing an eCommerce platform. But perhaps more important is the technology that supports the platform on which your consumers shop. The right application of technology makes it easier to deliver a seamless customer experience that encourages retention. Consumers look for ease when it comes to browsing eCommerce sites. Chatbots and Conversational AI, intelligent search technology and intuitive user experience design all act as the impetus in the customer journey.
Chatbots and Conversational AI
Deploying chatbots or conversational AI on your digital channels is a great way to engage with the customer at every step of their journey. Conversational AI is the undoubted champion of personalized, quick, and convenient experiences. While more than half of the users find the most frustrating aspect of customer service as the slow response time, intelligent AI concierges can instantly greet them, answer questions 24×7, carry out transactions, and even connect them to agents with ample contextual data. Backed with NLP and ML, they can also create a proactive personalized offer, send reminders, filter out necessary content, and share rich imagery and product photos depending on the channel of interaction.
Multi-Cloud Setup
As competitive advantage becomes ever more time-sensitive, businesses must launch new products, offerings, and services to both stay relevant and compete with digital native players. With a multi-cloud environment, applications development is easy to scale and eliminates hardware dependencies.
For a buyer to follow through with an online purchase, they must trust the retailer’s digital infrastructure to keep their personal data and payment information secure. Built-in security features with specialized cloud security tools and compliance with global laws and regulations, ensuring that sensitive customer data is always protected.
Intelligent Search Technology
Intelligent search optimizes traditional search. Ecommerce businesses that invest in this technology help their visitors get answers to their searches more quickly and easily. Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), intelligent search combines natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML). With intelligent search, information is located as quickly as needed because data silos are broken down and information can be extracted from any data source. For customers, search results align better with intended desires and their overall experience is improved.
Better Experiences Deliver Higher Sales
It’s no secret that modern customers are increasing looking to their computers and phones to satisfy their shopping needs with the expectation of high functionality and customization. That is why eCommerce businesses must deliver a personalized omnichannel experience. Data and right-sized technologies are the keys to do so. Designing the right pathways for the right devices, optimizing and connecting individual touch points, capitalizing on user journeys using real-time data, and employing the right technology at the core all help to achieve the “total experience” for customers.
Apexon uses data and technology solutions to optimize the commerce experience and provide seamless interactions. With its e-commerce expertise, the team at Apexon enables companies to deliver engaging and personalized messages by providing omnichannel commerce solutions. Apexon has you and your customers covered across every channel. Check out Apexon’s Digital Commerce services or get in touch with us directly using the form below.
