When it comes to customer experience, little things don’t mean a lot. They mean everything. When you think of the online experience, this is especially true.

MarketingProfs just sent an email out with a great article called ”I Trust You Because Your Floor Looks Clean and Shiny”. Naturally this type of thinking applies to brick and mortar locations. But you can easily morph this over to the web…

Off the cuff, this type of thinking would translate to: I trust you because your site is friendly and personalized.

1. Friendly:

On March 26, 2008, I posted about the fact that 9 out of 10 consumers abandon transactions. Rather shocking, but it mostly came down to lack of friendliness online. What does make a site friendly is basic etiquette like:

- easy navigation
- intuitive login procedures
- easy check-outs
- up-front pricing and shipping information
- helpful search functionality
- customer service options including LiveChat
- etc.

2. Personalized:

A personalized experience addresses the need for timely, relevant messages and offers. Web sites that build personalization into the mix minimize the headaches associated with information that’s insufficient, incorrect or confusing.

At the end of the day, it’s so important to remember the impact of trust. Trust is everything online especially when it comes to making transactions. Mylene Mangalindan of the Wall Street Journal wrote an excellent article called “Web Sites Want You to Stick Around” yesterday. In this article, she writes about “customer experience” tech tools…which is exactly how you can think of Sitebrand’s Retail Marketing Suite BTW. According to a survey for Forrester Research: “Interest in such “customer experience” tech tools is high.  In a recent survey of 287 companies, 91% of respondents at U.S. companies said customer experience will be very important or critical to their 2008 Internet efforts, up from 85% last year.”

It went on to read:

“Another study last week from trade group Shop.org and Forrester found that online retailers are allocating 21% of their total 2008 marketing budgets to online customer retention. Many companies realize that consumers making transactions on their Web sites are a mouse-click away from patronizing a rival. And consumers themselves are better informed and more experienced with the Internet — 32% of Web shoppers have been online for seven years — so their expectations are higher, says Forrester analyst Megan Burns.”

So the big question is - do you keep doing what you always do or do you think differently…and truly think about the customer?

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