Recent research by 123-reg shows that, although customers think that smaller businesses offer a better service in person, their websites fail to deliver the same experience. We look at the mistakes that companies are making and how you can make sure you deliver exceptional service online.
In the news, there are reports that nearly half of small businesses are confused by automatic enrolment, and the European Court of Human Rights has confirmed that employers can read their workers’ private messages.
Top news stories
Small businesses confused by automatic enrolment
A survey found that nearly half of employers who must set up a pension scheme for their staff in the next two years are confused about their responsibilities.
Private messages at work can be read by employers
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said a company that read a worker's Yahoo Messenger chats sent while he was at work was within its rights. But a number of groups have warned that employers shouldn’t see this as a green light for snooping.
Euro transfers cost UK small businesses £4 billion a year
The research showed that these costs are partly as a result of a lack of transparency which makes it tough for them to get the best deal from banks.
Energy firms overcharging customers, says Ofgem
Energy companies are "overcharging in many cases" with bills failing to fall in line with dropping wholesale costs.
Small businesses think challenger banks offer better service
A survey showed that challenger banks were at the top, with aggregate customer satisfaction ratings over 80%.
Key dates for your diary
31 January: Deadline for online submission of Self Assessment tax returns for tax year ended 5 April 2015.
31 January: Deadline for paying Self Assessment ‘balancing payments’ for tax year ended 5 April 2015.
31 January: Deadline for first Self Assessment payment on account for tax year ended 5 April 2016.
Delivering great customer service online
Is your website great? Does it deliver the same high standard of service that you offer in person? If not, it seems you’re not alone. 59% of consumers believe big businesses offer a “generally better” service online.
But there’s a huge opportunity if you can get this right. Customers said they love the personalised service they get from small businesses, so if you can replicate this online, you could increase sales. 123-reg says that it could almost halve lost sales opportunities and could double return visits.
Here are the key things that customers said separated big business websites from those of smaller companies:
Mobile-optimised websites
People browse the web at any time, on a range of devices. In fact, by February last year 45% of visits to ecommerce sites were from smartphones and tablets. Making sure your website is optimised for mobile devices not only helps increase conversion but can also improve your search rankings too. Google now takes mobile optimisation into account when deciding rankings, so it’s definitely worth making the change.
We have some advice about how to optimise your site.
Working links
There are few things that are more frustrating on a website than finding the link you want and discovering that it’s broken.
Spending a couple of minutes each week checking your links is easy and worthwhile. There are a number of free link checkers (like Dead Link Checker and Dr Link Checker) that will check your whole site and tell you if any of your links are broken.
Product reviews
Peer-to-peer information is now an essential part of the web and product reviews are part of this. Research shows that 88% of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations and 63% of customers are more likely to make a purchase from a site which has user reviews.
Adding reviews to your site can also help with your conversion levels - research showed that products with 50 or more reviews had a 4.6% increase in conversion rates.
It doesn’t have to be tricky to add reviews to your site. Many ecommerce CMS offer this functionality out-of-the-box, making it easy to add them to your site. Just make sure you keep an eye on them and have clear guidelines about what can be posted.
Product recommendations
We’ve all seen this - “people who bought this also bought…” It’s the type of help that you might get in person in a small business - a personal service that helps you find what you need. Not only is this great for your customers, it’s also good for your bottom line.
Amazon is arguably the leader in making recommendations for related products and, although they won’t comment on how much this is worth to their business, one Forrester analyst estimates that as many as 60% of recommendations are added to customers’ baskets and bought.
Whether you add your recommendations manually or use an automated system, it’s sure to be of benefit to your customers.
Customised site information
We all like to receive a personalised experience. It makes us feel special and often helps us to find what we want more quickly. Whether your website shows content based on a person’s browsing history or makes product recommendations based on past purchases, personalisation can have a big effect. Figures show that personalisation can increase sales by 19% and lead to a 42% higher conversion rate.
Think about ways in which you could personalise your site and offer a similar experience to your offline service. You could personalise content based on where people are based or on the type of information they are looking for. Your web developer should be able to help with this, or you may find modules that you can use with your CMS.
Alternatively make sure you have analytics on your website (Google Analytics is free) and use it to see how people are interacting and what they are interested in. You can then change the site to reflect this.