New technologies promising to make it easier for businesses to convert more customers are released every day and as a marketer you may feel overwhelmed by jargon and choice. Reaching people on ‘multiple touch points’ and ‘across channels’ is all very well; but how can you be sure the latest gizmo will genuinely offer a solution worth the, often significant, investment?
Above everything, consumers want the online buying process to be simple. So, if you are a growing ecommerce platform, the most effective solution to connect and ultimately convert your customers may well be the simple and dare I say it, old fashioned: offer to talk to them on the phone, for free, at their convenience, before purchase.
Having a free call back button on your site or at checkout stage is not only an easy but cost-effective tool to address this universal problem. The technology is cloud based (meaning it’s delivered via the web), can run alongside existing systems, and be monitored by any member of your team – whether they’re tech savvy or not.
According to a recent consumer survey, a fifth of customers would be less likely to drop out of an online sale if given the option of a free call back (One Poll). Forrester also recently highlighted that, for every £100 organisations spend getting customers to a website, only £1 is spent converting them. The need for businesses to communicate more effectively with their customers is clear.
Don’t get me wrong, in 2013 multi-channel is incredibly important and will continue to shape ecommerce; but don’t lose site of the fact that multichannel means offline as well as on. The reality is that when making a purchase, particularly something that costs more than a few quid, customers usually want to talk to someone as part of the transaction. Doing so reassures them that they’re dealing with a reputable organisation and as the old adage goes – people want to do business with people.
By James Critchley, CEO of cloud.IQ.
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