Customer experience deals with the communication between a business and a customer, which includes the purchase of products or hiring a service. In addition, doing this really well can give your business a competitive edge.
One way to do that is by is improving your website’s usability. And here are nine design tips that can help you achieve it:
Navigation and Search Functionality
Your website’s navigation and search functionality make it easy for your website visitors to find the online information that they are looking for. Hence, you should streamline this part of your website.
Here are some best practices to keep in mind:
- Use descriptive labels
- Avoid dropdown menu
- Limit your menu to seven items
- Consider the serial position effect
- Optimize your website navigation
- Make it mobile-friendly
Another pro tip that you should keep in mind is not to use a format-based label. So, instead of saying “Galley,” “Videos,” and “White Papers,” make is as descriptive as possible.
Doing so makes it easy for your site visitors to interact and engage with your website. As a result, they will be encouraged to come back again and again.
Website Speed and Accessibility
During the last quarter of 2019, statistics showed that 52.6% of internet traffic comes from smartphones. Hence, it is important to keep page load speed and accessibility in mind when designing your website.
This is possible by doing the following:
- Hosting fonts from a content delivery network (CDN)
- Removing unnecessary design elements
- Converting your website into an accelerated mobile page (AMP)
- Turning your mobile site into a progressive web app (PWA)
But aside from making your website mobile-responsive, it is more important to think mobile-first.
Meaning, whenever you are working on your website, you should first consider how it would look and function on mobile. That’s because customers will judge the kind of service excellence you can provide based on your website’s mobile-friendliness.
Sleek and Modern Design
At Sytian Website Designer Philippines, they believe that web design matters as much as content when it comes to providing the best online customer experience. In fact, how your website looks is enough for website visitors to decide whether to trust your business or not.
That said, it is important to keep a sleek and modern web design. And when we say “sleek and modern” we mean a cohesive color scheme that does not look like it was from 1996.
Web design factors that provide excellent customer service include clearly visible contact information, a website logo that is linked to your homepage, and aesthetic design. That way, your website visitors will deem your website as legit, making it easy for you to build trust with them.
Customer Experience
With the development of technology in recent years, customers are no longer satisfied with just a straightforward purchase. You should put customer experience (CX) into consideration when designing your website.
To do that, you can follow these tips:
- Adopt a casual tone throughout your content
- Ensure that means to customer support is always available
- Use social proof to build credibility
- Streamline the online purchasing process
- Iterate your web design when needed
Checkout Process
A complicated checkout process is a major turn off to a lot of online customers. In fact, if you take “just browsing” out of the equation, one of the top three reasons people abandon their cart is a complicated checkout process.
That said, it is important to simplify your checkout process when designing your online store. This is possible when you do the following:
- Only ask for the necessary information. The full name, delivery address, and contact details are enough.
- Provide quick-fix solutions. Instead of just notifying your buyers that they forgot to fill out a form field, highlight it, and then provide examples of your expected answer.
- Place sign-up forms later. Instead of prompting your customers to sign up before they make a purchase, let them complete the process as a guest first and then invite them to sign up afterward.
Long-Form Content
While a product description content is less likely to reach 300 words, keep in mind that your customers can discover you and your products through your content.
Hence, it is important to consider adding a blog section on your website. It is also imperative that your blog’s template is designed for easy content consumption.
Meaning, the way you present your content should be scannable. You can do this by using keyword-rich headers and sub-headers, as well as breaking your paragraphs into shorter ones (maximum of three sentences per paragraph).
You should also make sure that your content can help your site visitors come up with an informed decision as to why they should buy your products. And do not forget your calls to action so they can do business with you straight from your long-form content.
Scannable Content
In relation to our previous point, keep in mind that only a small number of site visitors read long-form content word by word. And according to Nielsen Norman Group, 79% of Internet users only scan the page.
Hence, you should make your content easy to scan if you want your website to provide an excellent user experience (UX).
You can do this by breaking your text into shorter paragraphs (three sentences at most), using headers and sub-headers, bullet points and numbered lists. Moreover, refrain from using business jargon, and make sure that you are linking to credible sources when mentioning statistics or making claims.
Emotional Connection
The reason it is difficult for Internet users to build rapport with an online business is that there is less human interaction.
However, you can foster an emotional connection with your website visitors depending on how you design your website. This is possible through the content that you create.
For instance, publishing a video of a person using your product can give you a couple of benefits:
- It allows you to catch and retain your customer’s attention
- You get to demonstrate how your product is used
- You get to showcase how your product can solve a problem
- You get to compel your audience to buy your product
The key here is to leverage the power of storytelling so your target customers can associate you with positive emotions.
Customer Reviews
Do you know that 76% of online consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust recommendations from friends and family?
Hence, it is important to include customer reviews or client testimonials when designing your website. Make sure to place it strategically on your product pages. This is in order to assist your potential customers in deciding whether to buy your products or not.
What other web design tips that can help boost customer experience do you know? We’d like to hear it in the comments!
