Online Shopping Experience, Essay Example

Renting a server for an e-commerce site might seem like an unnecessary expense for many website owners, however, in order to protect customers and gain the trust of visitors, it might be a way of making online shopping experience more approachable. Implementing customization and safety features to benefit customers is the right approach to gain higher level of retention and customer satisfaction. Implementing SSL certificates, vulnerability scanning software and content verification, as well as providing excellent customer service are the main areas where website owners can make a difference.

Improvement Areas

According to Kleinman (2012, p. 3.) there are several improvement areas that companies involved in electronic transactions should tackle. Building trust is one of the main areas e-commerce website owners should be focusing on. (Comodo, 2012, p. 2)

a. Communicating expected delivery date

While many e-commerce sites have terms and conditions placed on the checkout page, not all of them communicate expected delivery date and conditions. Customers need to know whether they need to sign for the package, can specify time slots or can appoint a neighbor to receive the order. Customers are more likely to return to the site if there is an effective communication established. (Weithas, 2013)

b. Live customer service

No matter how detailed the product or service description is on the site, some customers would still like to ask questions. Having a virtual assistant who is knowledgeable logged into the live customer service system will increase customer satisfaction and eliminate problems during the process of clarifying terms, details and conditions.

c. Saving purchasing preferences

Tracking customer behavior can create some privacy issues, however, some online shoppers like the features of sites that remembers their preferences and favorite products. This means that they can use a “quick reorder” button and get the same products as last time. This option will also save them time and make them more satisfied with the shopping experience. (Kleinman, 2012, p. 10)

Renting a Server

For most e-commerce websites, advanced hosting plans are necessary to be ordered. First of all; the hosting needs to include SSSL security as well as a database service. Further, data transferred through the servers needs to be transcribed in order to protect customers’ data and financial details. For using images, multimedia and shopping cart software, renting a server would be safer and more cost-effective than getting the site hosted on a shared storage. E-commerce website owners can take advantage of dedicated server hosting or virtual dedicated packages.

According to Roggio (2009), an in-house server improves the performance of the site, therefore it is a tool to improve customer experience. When sending order and shipping updates, as well as customer marketing materials using an autoresponder service, having a dedicated or in-house server would mean that internet server and mail providers would not blacklist the e-mail, as it is not associated with other sites sending spam messages. In most cases, communication quality (ie. e-mail) is determined by the data going through the server. Having a “bad neighbor” on the shared hosting server can result in messages not being delivered to customers and reputation loss. Firewalls can easily be installed on dedicated servers, not slowing down the speed of the site, while improving efficiency, security and performance. Further, maintenance and backup solutions can be made more flexible. (Weithas, 2013)

References

Comodo (2012) Building trust with customers builds business. Identity and trust assurance technologies. Retrieved from http://www.comodo.com/pdf/ita_merchant.pdf

Kleinman, S. (2012) Online Shopping Customer Experience Study. Retrieved from http://www.pressroom.ups.com/pressroom/staticfiles/pdf/fact_sheets/comScore_Customer_Experience_White_Paper.pdf

Roggio, A. (2009) Ecommerce know-how: should you host your own website? Practical Ecommerce. Retrieved from http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/1200-Ecommerce-Know-How-Should-You-Host-Your-Own-Website-

Weithas, R. (2013) Engaging online shoppers with custom, in-the-moment experiences. Retrieved from http://webtrends.com/files/whitepaper/Whitepaper-Streams-Retail-Webtrends.pdf