According to the Experts: How to Get Your Customer Experience Right

One of the most essential tools at your disposal for connecting with consumers is your customer experience. Your external marketing efforts are key, but nothing convinces shoppers to click the “Add to Cart” button more than a seamless buying process.

A lot goes into your customer experience, though. Between site navigation, design, social proof, personalization, checkout, customer service, and more, you have plenty of ways to get your CX right — and just as many opportunities for it to go wrong.

Improve Customer Experience with These Expert Tips 

How can you make your customer experience the best it can be? There’s no one better to turn to than the experts who have seen and done it all while working with countless brands like yours. We’ve collected outstanding insight and advice from top ecommerce agencies and technology platforms across the DTC industry. See what they say are the best CX practices to keep customers coming back again and again and what to be on the lookout for in 2022.

What CX touch points are the most critical for DTC brands and why?

Email marketing is a top CX touch point, without an ounce of a doubt. Being an owned channel and a direct 1:1 line of communication with any existing or potential customer, your email program can make or break any customer relationship. Not only is it the easiest way to keep your customers up-to-date, but this Swiss-Army knife of a channel has touchpoints that are personable at-scale, able to provide quick and lasting solutions through support lines, and so much more. Sure, it’s been around for what feels like forever, but not without good reason. Certain social platforms’ influence may come and go, but email has been (and will continue to be) here to stay.

From Alex Melone
Chief Production Officer at CodeCrew

When it comes to Customer Experience, every touch point is important for DTC brands. Providing an amazing CX is all about optimizing the entire omni-channel experience for your customers. However, it is most critical to ensure the post-purchase experience is seamless. When customers checkout, you want the buying experience to be as easy as possible. The same holds true for the shipping, tracking and the possible return of the product. Ensuring this post-purchase experience is seamless will reduce the chances of a customer becoming frustrated with the brand and increase the chances of a future purchase or positive review of the product.

From John Surdakowski
Founder & CEO at Avex

Page load speed. Since the Summer of 2021, if web pages don’t load within 1-3 seconds, Google ranks them lower. This is something most websites are not optimizing for. A lot of factors impact page load speed: non-optimized images (both file size and resolution), compression, async, deferring JavaScripts and Web Fonts, and a lot more. Shopify sites in particular, are extremely difficult to optimize. While the new-ish Online Store 2.0 has improved their speed overall, there’s still a lot left for developers to do. One thing you can do is create content sections to display specifically on mobile vs. desktop because you don’t want to display a 1920px image on a small phone.

From Adam Bell
Design Director & CEO at dataTV

The unboxing of a product is the highest open rate in ecommerce. Delight shoppers with unique touchpoints and memorable unboxing experiences that help your brand stand out from the competition, leave a lasting impression, and encourage repeat purchases. Using branded boxes or poly mailers, offering custom gift notes, and including marketing inserts with coupons or free samples are all ways you can level up the unboxing experience.

From Kristina Lopienski
Director of Marketing Communications at ShipBob

What’s your top CX tip or best practice for DTC brands?

There is so much research to support that driving loyalty – beats brand, price and value combined. DTC brands may not have the deepest pockets, but they have the relationship and the data – and can action tasks, fast! Consumers shopping online have endless brands to choose from. By prioritizing the implementation of a great CX loyalty system, DTC brands will be setting themselves up for greater success in 2022.

From Paul Fletcher
Digital Director at Moustache Republic

Customers want to know they’re valued for more than just their pocketbook. So let them peek behind the curtain and give them a sense of involvement in your brand. This could mean having them help choose your next flavor if you make non-alcoholic sparkling water, or next season’s special scent if you make candles. Giving customers a reason to feel they’re part of the success of your business only strengthens the bond they feel with you—and their likelihood to return and purchase again.

From Robert Alan
Founder & CEO at Monumental

Website accessibility is a lot more than just placing alternate text on images. It’s font sizes, color contrast, call to action button text (Click Here ain’t enough), tab order, captions on video and so much more. Do you lose creativity by doing this? In some cases, yes. But it needs to be done. Accessibility lawsuits are easy to bring forward, and it is even easier to find sites that aren’t accessible. It is so imperative to make certain your site is as accessible as it can be, and that you prioritize including an Accessibility Policy on your site.

From Adam Bell
Design Director & CEO at dataTV

Your tech stack’s connectivity and compatibility is crucial. In order to provide a seamless experience for your customers, your back-end organization needs to be on point. Pick tech partners that have robust integrations with each other, but most essential is the connection between your reviews platform, customer service desk, and email platform. If a bad review comes in, it should be automatic that it’s flagged and sent to your CS team. Automations like this stop customer complaints from slipping through the cracks.

From Rattan Muttoo
eCommerce Director at KlewdUp

Do you have any predictions for 2022 CX trends?

Social media will be a primary customer service channel in 2022. Social media platforms have become crucial to the customer journey where customers are now discovering new brands, exploring products, and making buying decisions all on social media. As a result of this, customers expect to also ask questions and get help on those same platforms. Social media is proven to be one of the most effective channels to provide your customers with accessible and timely support, so It’s definitely worth prioritizing social media as part of your omnichannel service strategy in 2022.

From Mia Bobak
Tech Partner Manager at Gorgias

Robust, first-party, self-generated customer data that is segmented by channel, behavior, and messaging will be paramount in building existing and new customer relationships and contextual experiences. Plan on creating a data strategy in 2022: Collect, organize, store and unify to develop a rich data view of your customers (personalized customer experience based on context and needs will reduce costs and improve online sales). DTC brands that are not considering these things take the risk of losing market share, profitability and resources.

From Paul Fletcher
Digital Director at Moustache Republic

Online customers have increasingly specific and elevated requirements around convenience. Every soft-spot in your purchase funnel should be a target for improvement. Brands that make their products easily accessible with 1-click checkout, will beat out others who don’t. We are seeing a hyperbolic increase in the number of alternative brands for customers to consider, which is making it harder for brands to retain their customers. In 2022, brands need to tighten their purchase funnel, collect and analyze customer feedback, and implement adjustments quickly in order to keep their customer’s loyalty.

From Marko Bon
Co-Founder at Tomorrow

It’s expected that for any eCommerce brand the purchasing process will be quick and easy, mobile compatible, and transparent. Social commerce and influencer marketing have significantly shortened the time from awareness to conversion and you don’t want your purchase funnel or your logistical fulfillment to slow down that momentum. In 2022 supply chain issues are persisting and if you can’t keep your inventory stocked and shipments going out on time, it will cause customer frustration. Being transparent about shipping timelines during the order process is necessary, and putting in place shipping update communication flows is more important than ever.

From Kathryn Browning
Senior Marketing Manager at Justuno

Conclusion

If customer retention and acquisition are the lifeblood of your business, your customer experience is the beating heart. A lot goes into making a good one, and consumers have high expectations, so don’t forget to keep these leading agencies’ advice in mind when perfecting yours!

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