How to Improve Online Customer Experience Through the Back End

People prefer to buy online these days. With the absence of physical interaction between the seller and the buyer, there now is a growing need for businesses to replicate in-store experiences to maintain customer satisfaction within targeted levels. This could be achieved partly through easily navigable site pages and responsive online customer service agents. Still, businesses cannot neglect the following equally important back-end elements if they want to put a smile on their customers’ faces:

Customer Data Encryption

Studies show that approximately 66 percent of customers are concerned about their data security when shopping online. The least you can do for any visitor to your online store is to protect their identity and personal information. You can do this with a secure sockets layer (SSL) certificate the moment you set up your site through a hosting service provider. This inhibits any third party from accessing information encoded by anyone who manages the server or the buyer.

Data phishers mostly target people’s bank details and are rather skilled at breaking into even encrypted passwords. You can double up your clients’ protection by employing two-factor authentication for when they have to authorize the payment of their purchased items with their linked bank accounts or online wallets. Equally important is this setup notifies the seller of breach attempts.

Optimized Supply Chain

Rarely does a company that has taken its business online without having regional, if not global expansion in mind. These days, making your products available online implies that you can cater to orders from around the globe, specifically the countries you set out to be your market. Moreover, you have to fulfill orders within the standard shipping time, or else you’ll have impatient customers swarming your storefront.

That said, it is important to establish connections with logistics companies in the different locations you serve. Likewise, you should be able to anticipate the need to possibly put up additional warehouses if that will optimize your order fulfillment. You can also gain an edge if you stay abreast with point-to-point movements of shipments and always being in the know of freight held at customs.

You have all these alternatives, but you should not overlook savings opportunities such as volume shipping discounts. Many logistics companies also gladly offer perks when you use an alternative to check payments. That way, you will not have to pass on costs to your valued customers.

Flexible Payment Options

Enabling credit or debit card or digital wallet payment is commonplace. But a good portion of the population still hesitates with disclosing their card information to a site. In contrast, others share the sentiment that online stores do not have enough payment options. Hence, this leads to ultimately abandoning their cart.

If you haven’t yet, consider adding these widely used fund transfer platforms to your customers’ roster of payment options:

  • Paypal. It remains the number one authority for international fund transfers with 254 million individual and 17 million business users worldwide.
  • American Express. It boasts the highest satisfaction rates among its counterparts with its round-the-clock customer support and links to many payment fulfillers.
  • Google Play. Whether on a desktop computer or a mobile phone, users can be assured of the security of their card information with Google Pay. Sellers could maximize its loyalty program features too.
  • Apple Pay. Apple device users have the privilege of secure payments by simply using their touch IDs.

Your customers need not manually input their bank and personal information in the checkout section with these reliable systems. The payment could be as painless as logging into their online payment service provider and authorize the deduction.

Projected Inventory Replenishment

Nothing is more disappointing to an online customer than being told to believe that the item they just checked out is available when, in fact, stocks have been exhausted. What makes it more stressful is the thought of wasting all their time choosing the best item for them and whether they will ever be refunded the amount their bank account was deducted of.

If your supply chain still heavily relies on manual inventory counts and you notice there has been a spike in canceled orders due to stock-outs, this should mean that the system in place no longer works for your business’s current scale. This should also mean that it’s about time you transition to an inventory management system that updates in real-time. That way, every dispensed unit is replenished with a fresh one. More sophisticated systems could automate projection of future demand making such features handy during identified peak seasons or holidays.

The experience customers have when shopping from your online portal does not solely rely on striking web design. It has a lot to do with the processes laid down on the back end. Streamline these, and customer satisfaction and guaranteed sales will follow.