Delighting the Customer vs Decreasing Problems in B2B eCommerce

As individuals or businesses, we all look to improve. In e-Commerce, this could mean making business processes more efficient or improving customer experience in various ways, from simplifying product search to providing even more relevant information. However, sometimes efforts to improve could be taken for granted by the customer; the more above and beyond customer expectations we go, the more it becomes the new standard. While improving by adding more features and options to the online shopping experience to meet high expectations is something we should always do, decreasing problems may have a bigger and longer lasting impact.

Sometimes the most natural instinct for a shopper is to punish the bad rather than reward the good. Consider the customer who had a not-so-stellar experience who is so irate that they bad mouth the company to everyone they know and broadcast it on social media. If they receive a positive experience, however, they won’t necessarily sing your praises because a good experience is simply expected from today’s e-Commerce websites. A negative impression stays far longer than a good one. Delighting the customer has become commonplace and decreasing problems is now the challenge that we need to address.

Shift Your Perspective

There are plenty of e-Commerce features that provide options for your customer and add to the shopping process but it makes sense to decrease overall effort first. Focus on reducing customer effort when they are ordering, searching, navigating, checking out, asking questions, and placing special requests regarding the product and shipping for example. Rather than the vague advice we always hear to exceed customer expectations, we must think of actionable strategies that make online shopping even easier. This could include minimizing the number of clicks or crafting an intuitive shopping journey with relevant links and showing related products.

Reducing Effort for Your Business

On the back end of your e-Commerce solution, reducing effort means no double work and duplication, minimizing errors, increasing automation and integration, and simplifying processes. An integrated webshop solution like Nav-to-Net™ takes many of these factors into consideration, offering tailored e-Commerce features that match the business processes already existing in NAV. Customer experience is important but so is the business user experience and the way it is managed in the back end. By integrating with NAV, there is more time to focus on other aspects of your business.

Easing Customer Pain Points

Customers are looking for speed and ease when shopping on a website with smooth, intuitive processes; this should move them from browsers to buyers. Your e-Commerce website is also a hub for information where customers come to learn and interact. Here are some ways to alleviate customer stress:

• Customer Account Portals – Customers can manage their profile information, preferences, and help themselves as much as possible, getting answers to questions that don’t necessarily require involvement from a customer service representative.
• One step checkout means faster processes. A guest checkout option will also minimize hoops to jump through, making it easier for customers to get to that finish line.
• Parametric search, among other website search functions, allows customers to locate products swiftly by narrowing down huge product catalogs by criteria.
• Coupons are buying incentives where customers can save money and obtain instantaneous gratification. When they are easily applied and managed in NAV, it reduces efforts all around.

Another way to decrease effort for your customers is to make your homepage and other resource pages “sticky”. By being “sticky”, the pages serve as a knowledge base so customers can return again and again for the information, updates, and assistance with specific topics. Keep these pages updated with an effective content management system. Submission forms are also a good way to encourage customers to reach out either for requests, callbacks, event sign-ups, newsletters, etc.

How does Nav-to-Net™ help?

• Integration! This needs to be the core of your e-Commerce solution. With a solution like Nav-to-Net™, you decrease a host of commonly encountered e-Commerce problems because it enables you to manage and run webshop right in NAV with real-time synchronization and leverage your existing investment in NAV.
• Advanced content management system in NAV Business Central. Obviously, your products are the star of your webshop but quality content sells, educates, and gives context. When it’s all-in-NAV, you no longer have the problem of flipping back and forth between interfaces.
• Reliability with Always Take Orders™ and SmartPush Technology™. You will never encounter problems when it comes to temporary disconnects from NAV. Never lose an order with these exclusive to Nav-to-Net™ features.

Nav-to-Net™ is a serious problem solver. Request a demo or talk to us today about how we can help you achieve your business objectives.

Click here to watch a 4-Minute Video Tour of Nav-to-Net B2B E-Commerce