5 tips on how to improve your fashion website CX.
Improving your fashion website customer experience (CX) should be a continual cycle. Certainly, to effectively improve your website CX you need to always be listening to your customer data and acting on it. The key benefit of operating your own DTC website is that you directly own your customer data, and it is yours to learn from and improve your brands CX.
CX data is a win-win economy.
Tip 1: Create a community to build rapport and trust.
Why creating community matters.
When your customers form communities, you’ve pretty much got a dedicated and loyal band of followers on your hands who are yours to lose. Most importantly, these are customers who will sing your praises, share your content and buy all your latest products.
Communication = community.
‘Communication is super important to your success. Studies show that 57% of consumers will stay loyal to a brand if there was more human communication.’
Tools you can use to create a community are:
- Facebook messenger.
- Launch your own Facebook group.
- Use twitter.
- Install live chat on your website. An example provider.
To successfully build an engaged community follow these tips:
- Know your audience.
- This is where consumer personas are extremely important.
- Solve the problems of your followers.
- Use social media to learn about what their pain points are.
- Use this data to inform, product, service and all your messaging.
- Tell a story.
- Be generous.
- Motivate your community to share content. To do this incentivise them!
- Listen to your audience.
- Ensure your social media focuses on the community, not just product.
- Show your human side.
- Be honest.
- This builds trust.
- Reward your top contributors.
Tip 2: Personalise.
‘According to a 2016 Forbes Insights & PwC Content Survey, 94% of senior-level executives believe delivering personalization is critical to reaching customers.’
Companies that don’t own their sales channels are missing out on the opportunity to create personalized experiences and form relationships with consumers because those companies are not involved in consumer interaction or transaction.
Personalisation.
COVID seems to have brought about a growth in the demand for personalisation and it is now a hot trend. As more consumers are using eCommerce, you need to ensure that they feel that your service is personal. As a result, this will directly improve your fashion website CX.
"Communication is super important to your success. Studies show that 57% of consumers will stay loyal to a brand if there was more human communication."
Unzipped
How you can personalise your service:
- To grow as a brand you need to improve your DTC channel.
- Improve your product copy and ensure all customers’ questions are answered.
- Show buy with styles and/or recommended for you.
- Use AI to track their interests and cater their searches to each customer.
- Offer a live chat and/or a phone line that is answered 6 days a week, extended office hours as a minimum.
- Always use their first name.
- Respond quickly and track feedback.
- Tell your story by having an about you profile on your site.
- Offer pay later options.
- State the delivery terms clearly, not just on the product page.
- Ensure you have an email sequence set from the point the order is placed through to retention emails.
- Improve and refine your customer journey, by surveying your current customers and seeking feedback on what could be improved.
- Ask them what rewards and deals they are looking for.
Always use relevant content.
This applies to your DTC website as well as any marketing ads or social media posts.
‘In fact, poorly targeted personalisation can do more than just irritate visitors, according to a study by Janrain/Harris Interactive.’
Tip 3: Seek reviews.
Before discussing how seeking reviews can directly improve your fashion websites CX, firstly I want to highlight that customer reviews are a free form of marketing.
- It puts a product in front of the consumer.
- It makes the product seem more credible.
- It helps consumers feel more connected to the product.
Reviews not only have the power to influence consumer decisions but in addition, can strengthen a company’s credibility.
- Reviews boost your SEO.
- Good review push you to the top of searches and filters.
Merely informing customers of the availability of a product or service is no longer adequate; above all customers are also craving knowledge from first-hand experiences.
If a product has a review it is more likely to be bought.
= A review is the power of sale.
Ways to seek customer reviews:
- Ensure you capture their email upon order placement. Why? Because as soon as you know they have received their order, a few days later send a short email asking if they were happy with their product. Ask them to submit a short answer, requesting their permission to publish this.
- You can use google forms as a method to capture this.
- Or choose an integrated system.
- Either in the parcel or via email, incentivise your customer to leave feedback with a discount code.
- Ask for photos.
- This is great for social media reviews.
Tips:
- Make the process as seamless as possible.
- Ensure you have an approval process in place for bad reviews.
- Ensure you comment back to both good and bad reviews – this demonstrates value.
The final benefit of seeking customer reviews is to listen to their feedback in which to improve your offer, catering your product to their needs.
Reviews are a direct line to your customers. By asking, listening and acting on their voice, this will build trust and a good rapport, whilst improving your fashion website CX.
Don’t overuse this privileged and pester customers. Respect them if they don’t reply as much as you’d respect them if they did.
Furthermore, if you gain good reviews and happy customers, always ensure to invite them to your social channels, as consumers tend to continue sharing their opinion no matter what form it is!
Testwuide states; ‘Beyond paid marketing, organically growing a community of loyal customers on Instagram and email maybe even more crucial.’
Tip 4: Customer journey.
Have you heard of Hotjar?
For instance, you can use Hotjar or similar to track what consumers do on your website, but most importantly when they exit your page. As a result, you can use these lessons to inform page improvements as this will directly improve your fashion website CX.
Let’s focus on the customer journey.
Ask yourself, where are you losing customers?
A common reason is in cart abandonment.
So, how can you stop this happening?
- Offer payment methods beyond one.
- Offer PayPal or similar.
- Offer pay later solutions.
- As standard offer all card payments.
- Offer free delivery.
- Offer free returns.
- Offer like chat.
To ensure your customers make it to the basket you need to ensure their journey is seamless.
- Always use clear messaging and give them a reason to buy.
- Ensure your delivery cost is clearly displayed, especially if free.
- Ensure your product copy answers every question about the product.
- Put yourself in the shoes of your shopper. What would they want to know? Tell them in the copy.
- Use amazing professional model imagery.
- Show angles.
- Details.
- Use studio and lifestyle.
- Show a video of the model wearing the clothes.
A tip: If you launch into new markets via your main website, ensure you use a translation tool.
Always remember you are competing with the large fashion brands therefore you need to compete with their digital standards & always think seamless journey!
Tip 5: Email sequences.
Email sequences are an essential way to improve your fashion website CX. Moreover, email sequences instantly create a good user experience as the consumers have a direct dialogue with you and feel wanted and special. The provider I recommend is MailChimp.
Here are my suggested, must use email sequence for all fashion brands. For more information behind the detail of this sequence get in touch.
Welcome email.
> Thanking them for their order and adding them to the mailing list.
Content email.
> Used to promote your brand, educate your customers on the latest styles.
Promotional Email.
> Now it’s time to run your first sales campaign.
Personalized Product Recommendations.
> Don’t send the same selection of dresses to everyone!
Abandoned Cart Emails.
> Firstly, your customer probably isn’t expecting a reminder email, so your subject line should clearly indicate what your email is about.
New Inventory.
Post Purchase Email.
> Here are some examples of what you could include in your post-purchase email:
- Post-purchase survey.
- Coupon code for next purchase.
- Referral code.
- Cross-sell product recommendations.
- Links to social profiles.
- Link to share purchase on social.
Review Request Email.
Testimonial Email.
> Now that you’ve collected great product reviews, start emailing them.
Reactivation Email.
> Automate a reengagement campaign for dormant subscribers after 60 days.
Holiday Email.
> Black Friday, plus other traditional calendar holidays.
Birthday Email.
Did you find that useful?
There are so many ways you can improve your fashion website CX you’ll be surprised. This blog post contains just 5 of my top tips. If you find these useful, please reach out to receive more tailored tips to improve your fashion website CX.
