The success of an eCommerce site depends a lot on the user experience it creates. When finding, comparing and buying products is easy and the user is not overwhelmed by information, the online store is remembered in a positive way.
According to a user survey by Digitoday, Finnish online stores stumble when it comes to usability. (original source: Digitoday)
According to the article, the biggest problem was the product listing of the online store, where, for example, a customer has to look for a phone among phone accessories. Online stores also listed products that were out of stock. Such user experience is perceived as poor customer service.
The idea of customer service in an online store can seem strange because the user is dealing with a system instead of a person. The truth, however, is that an eCommerce system is the most important customer service representative of an online store and it should work just as well as a brick-and-mortar seller.
When a customer enters a brick-and-mortar store to buy a phone, he or she does not assume that the seller will first introduce the phone accessories and then the phone. The customer also assumes that he or she will be able to receive the purchased phone immediately. The seller will not first offer the customer a phone that is not in stock. eCommerce should work the same way.
The bad side of registration
People often don’t want to register when they visit an online store. This was also noted in the Digitoday study. If a user is going to buy only a few products from the online store, he or she will probably just want to buy the products and not spend time registering.
Registration also raises doubts about where the information is stored and what is done with it. Many are concerned about whether a huge amount of newsletters or advertisements will be sent to the customer as a result of registration. For this reason, it is a good idea to provide the ability to shop online without having to register.
The story of “The $300 Million Button” written by Jared Spool (original source: UIE) is a good example of how removing the registration requirement can affect eCommerce sales. Jared Spool wrote about an online store whose registration request appeared to the user before going to checkout. It turned out that several users ended their sessions during the registration phase. Some, of course, registered but when they came back to the online store, many had forgotten their usernames. This led to people becoming frustrated while guessing which email address they had registered with and what the password might be. A function that should have speeded up transactions significantly slowed them down. The online store removed the registration requirement and replaced it with a notification that registration is not mandatory, but it will speed up shopping in the future. In the year following the change, the online store earned a whopping 300 million dollars more than the previous year.
If registration for an online store is mandatory, it should be handled as early as possible. This approach is called “lazy registration”. The user is only asked for the really mandatory information, such as a username and password, so that the customers can pay for their orders as quickly as possible. In any case, the user enters the delivery addresses and other important information for the order at the checkout, so it is not mandatory to ask for them during registration. However, the data provided at checkout can be stored in the customer account.
How do I get customers to register?
While registration may not be required, there are benefits to registering. A registered customer can be identified and this provides a better and more personalized customer service experience.
It is easy to provide interesting products to an identified (i.e. registered) customer based on previous orders and search history. If the online store has a live chat function, the seller can use these credentials and serve the customer in a more personal way. The seller can take on the same role in the online store as the seller of a brick-and-mortar shop. Actually, an online store seller is better equipped to serve the customer than an actual salesperson, because the customer’s behavioral history can be used in an online store.
However, a better experience in the future will not entice the buyer to register. Often, a person who does business in an online store is not planning to do business in the store in the future. That decision is made only after the product has been delivered and is proven to be good. Therefore, the user needs to be offered other types of incentives for registration. These can be, for example, discount offers or free deliveries. If registration requires nothing more than an email address and a password, and it allows the user to get a 10% discount on their purchases, the probability of registration is high.
Good service results in good customers
A good eCommerce system is also a good customer service representative. Everything about how the products are listed, how easy the service is to use, and whether the user can find the products they are looking for affects the customer’s user experience. At Pinja, we want eCommerce to serve both retailers and customers well. When a customer gets what he or she came for quickly and easily, the experience is positive and a decisive factor.
Read more:
Blog: Digital commerce trends 2023
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