Today’s customers are increasingly demanding that their commercial needs be met online as they look for faster and easier ways to shop for products and services. Global retail ecommerce grew at an astonishing rate of 21.6% in 2019 and is expected to take up 22% of the total retail market in 2023. Every day, we find more examples of cloud companies like Amazon displacing traditional or brick-and-mortar counterparts, forcing these counterparts to retrench or restructure.
Therefore, businesses are looking into increasing their online presence and evolving their technologies in order to (i) meet the increasing demand of their customers for online engagement, and (ii) to save money and increase productivity through cloud technologies. A company’s website is a key component of their digital strategy, so much care and attention need to be given to proper design.
1. Integrate Your Website into Your Sales Funnels
Unfortunately, many businesses build their websites to be stand-alone information portals, rather than being integral to the sales process. Websites typically share company information with visitors, along with pricing lists and location addresses. Thus, they act more like a static brochure rather than a dynamic lead processor.
The first order of business in upgrading your website is to integrate it into a larger sales funnel, so it is a step in the process of acquiring leads, pitching them, closing them, and then following up. Where your website falls in the process is up to you, as long as it’s performing sales-related functions besides acting like a telephone directory. Most pages of your website should elicit at least one action from your visitor (although not many more than one because you want to keep the messaging simple), such as gathering an email for a newsletter or generating a call.
2. Create a Website That Is Relevant and Relatable
Oftentimes, websites focus on the company and its products rather than the visitor and their needs. A visitor comes to a website looking for information, and you want to make the delivery of that information as easy and compelling as possible in order to capture and hold the attention of the visitor. Hence, rather than formulating a website around your company’s departments and products, categorize it around common customer problems and/or your solutions. Rather than listing features and prices, list offers, deals, and packages that focus on the delivered value. Remember, the website is not about your company; it is about your visitors and their perspectives. Add video demonstrations, testimonials, and other media that make your website easy to understand and consume, all with the customer and their perspective in mind.
3. Convert Your Website into a Smart Sales Channel
The irony of the rush to digital solutions for customer sales and service is that today’s customers value human interaction more than ever, as they feel dehumanized by virtual assistants and IVRs. Automation is a key component in reducing costs of customer-facing processes as companies rush to become more competitive, but on the flip side they are annoying their customers by offloading an agent’s work onto them (which disrespects their time and energy). These companies treat all customers alike, as if they are all inpatient do-it-yourself (DIY) types, while ignoring the other half that prefers human-to-human interaction. Companies need to carefully balance and mix automation with personability as they reduce costs and retain quality of service, and in the process they must hand the choice of service interactivity to the customer in a way that was not possible before the internet.
There is simply no replacement for a human agent in forming trust with customers and closing a sale, so it has become important for websites to include tools that allow for human communication. Add automation to your website with intelligent shopping carts, chatbots, and virtual assistants to reduce costs and attract the DIYers; but then also add tools like direct-dial phone buttons and chat boxes to allow for agent communications for the high-touch types.
For an innovative mix of the two, we recommend CrozTop, our website tool that has a chatbot built in but then also allows for an immersive, cross-interactive discussion between the agent and the visitor when needed. CrozTop allows the agent to interrupt the chatbot and engage the visitor with in-web video-calling, whiteboarding, contract eSigning, and more. Your website needs to have a way to answer visitors’ questions in the moment they arise, or your visitors will look for answers elsewhere.
Digital marketing has become ubiquitous, and ecommerce is growing more and more competitive. To stay ahead of the game, take the first step and ensure your website is built for sales.
