How Personalization Brings to Life Exclusive E-Commerce Services

Have you ever asked such questions as how to improve personalized customer services, how to customize your e-commerce platform, how to engage more clients within a cost-efficient marketing strategy?

The e-commerce industry is highly competitive since the target audience daily, if not hourly, receives multiple offers for business and has plentiful options of services and solutions. Navigating consumers choice to the right direction isn't an easy nor manageable task. In order to promote their goods, e-commerce business owners have to cater to their prospective clients taste for one-click convenience and widespread personalization.

So, if the answer is yes, focus your attention on e-commerce solutions and tools to personalize the consumer experience in the best possible way.

User-Tracking and Predictive Tools

To date, UX plays a pivotal role in the IT industry in general and in the e-commerce business in particular. Different types of UX tools assist in forming successful cooperation between user and application. I will focus on the tools that track and analyze users’ online behavior, thus contributing to further effective personalization.

User-tracking tools arm providers with valuable insight into what customers actually do or search for on websites. Let’s consider the following example: a bank customer has recently opened a new credit card and, obviously, visits a web portal for an informative reason. The analytic tools have already gathered data on what this client is mostly likely to be looking for, and displays credit card support info on the homepage. Such personalized service can significantly save a consumer's time as well as a provider’s resources spent on support services. Fifty-one percent of consumers require support services to be 24/7, and 92 percent prefer using live chats to get prompt and reliable answers. Meeting consumers’ expectations requires a substantial injection of funds on support services that can be significantly reduced through personalizing the user experience.

Another example will assure you: a sales lead browsing a company’s website. All necessary information about the lead is already available, and as a result of personalization, this consumer gets specified information displayed by the first click or gets redirected to a particular landing page. As a result, the consumer will unlikely contact a support service or use live chat, saving the provider’s time and expenditures. A prospective client will get a positive experience from the company's use of personalization.

Optimization Via Testing

The success of an e-commerce business is determined by the capability of a provider to test and apply new sales modes and marketing approaches. In the case of an e-commerce platform built on vertical modules, it's wise to use A/B testing to better understand consumers’ behaviors and preferences — e.g., their interest in services or goods, the percentage of consumers who visit certain landing pages, monitoring product success, etc. A/B testing provides conversion rate data that can become quite helpful in further introducing personalization changes.

Improvement areas to consider include the following:

• Personalization of content: If a prospective customer comes across relevant content from the first click, it can improve conversion growth up to 30 percent. Testing results help to define the most engaging content for consumers.
• Advertisements: While an irrelevant mailing may be distracting and irritating, customer-targeted ads increase engagement and may come in handy if an ad features a product or service that a consumer is searching for. Testing tools can help to predict the behavior of individual consumers.
• Communication: Irrelevant messages are simply tuned out by prospective customers. Targeted messaging effectively communicates with consumers, offering them relevant sales offers or services. Personalization saves consumers’ time and providers' resources since consumers receive relevant information and don’t need to use live chat.

Personalized technology solutions for e-commerce help to dramatically improve UX and save retailers money. The only issue to resolve is whether to choose an off-the-shelf solution or to go for the development of a unique custom one.

Katrine Spirina is a market analyst with OCSICO, a software development services provider.