Last Updated on August 31, 2023 by David
Building a successful eCommerce brand today requires you to build a relationship with your customers. With every market being so saturated with options, customers no longer rely on cost or convenience to be driving factors for choosing to shop with a particular brand. In fact, research indicates customers are almost always willing to spend more money on brands they feel a connection to. With this in mind, as an eCommerce business owner, you need to focus on the idea that you’re not selling products you’re in the business of selling your brand and connecting with customers on a personal level.
Since your customers drive your business, it’s important to understand how they connect with and interact with your brand. Read on for 4 ways the most successful eCommerce brands connect with their customers.
1. Build Community Within Your Brand’s Space
The most successful eCommerce brands are the ones that have created an authentic community of dedicated followers who use and love their brand. This offers multiple benefits to both the brand and the buyers.
For the brand, this creates a community of dedicated customers that will not only continue to purchase your product or service but are likely to recommend your brand to others. They will be more likely to trust your brand and remain long-time customers.
For customers, this type of community creates a space for them to gain access to valuable information, share their experiences and recommendations with other like-minded shoppers, and find support for using products or services with your brand. Customers can share their experiences with your brand, share photos, and more.
This not only gives you an edge over your competitors but it creates a space for your customers to return to, giving you direct access to an attentive audience and enabling you to grow your brand while getting real-time feedback from customers.
2. Build a Live and How-To Video Library
Videos are a great way to connect with your customers, it makes your brand more relatable because customers can see the faces running your brand, and is a more personal approach to sales. Additionally, they don’t have to be long, which means it doesn’t take a lot of extra effort on your part. While good lighting and high sound quality are vital aspects of a good video, you don’t have to have extensive editing or video skills to do so.
Live videos are ideal for providing Q&A opportunities on your social accounts, they also give customers an insight to your brand and its daily operations. You can do live videos from the office showing your product being produced, during company events, from your warehouse or distribution center, or when you’re getting ready to introduce a new product.
How-to videos are another great option, where you can show your customers best practices for using your product or service. This can help clear up any user errors, and also provides opportunities to cross-sell compatible products.
Videos show your customers your brand is being run by real people and give them an opportunity to connect with you and your brand. Be sure to let your personality shine through and bring out the human side of your brand.
3. Share Your Business Story on Your About Us Page
Your About Us page is often one of the first ways a customer will get a glimpse into your brand, especially if they found your brand through a search engine. For this reason, it’s absolutely vital that your About Us page tells a great story. Don’t be afraid to outsource this page to a professional writer if you don’t feel like your own writing skills are strong enough. You want to compel your audience with your “why”.
Your About Us page should tell the story of how your brand came to be, why you care about what you’re doing, how your product or service solves an issue you’re passionate about, who you are, and why you do what you do.
This is also the place to introduce your leadership and your team. Posting photos and a brief bio of each person and sharing a fun tidbit about them is a great way to ensure your customers connect to your brand.
4. Provide Excellent Customer Support
As always providing excellent customer support will always be what makes or breaks your brand. You can do everything else on this list and then some, but if your customer service is lacking none of that will matter.
To ensure your customer service offering is the best it can be, there’s a few things you can do:
- Train your customer service team on how to best serve your customers and respond to customer issues and complaints.
- Have a clear return policy detailed on your website.
- Post a detailed FAQ section your customers can refer to before having to reach out.
- Implement self-service support on your website such as chatbots.
- Implement live chat on your website to assist customers when the help they need extends beyond a chatbot’s capabilities.
- Utilize a shared inbox, especially one that integrates communications from other channels such as email, social networks, SMS, and your website.
Your customer support offering should be one of your strongest competitive advantages. Learn how Re:amaze can assist your eCommerce brand in improving your customer service today by contacting us to schedule a demo.