For retailers, the shopper experience is vital in creating loyal, repeat customers. Creating a convenient, streamlined purchase process is a great way to improve the consumers’ experience, whether online or in-store. This includes everything from when they enter the store or site to the post-purchase customer service process.

There are several ways to improve the shopper experience, and we are going to go through some of the simplest to achieve so that business owners can quickly adopt valuable changes. The strategies we suggest are:

• Speed up your website
• Add a chatbot to the landing page
• Incorporate roleplay in customer service training
• Offer flexible and convenient credit alternatives

Let’s dive into the details to clarify exactly how to implement these strategies.

Improve the Shopper Experience by Speeding up Your Website

Shortening the time needed to make a purchase is a great way to make things feel smooth and easy for customers. This means minimizing the amount of content on each page so that they don’t take long to load.

An easy way to do this is to break up a website into several different categories so that each individual page doesn’t get too large. When shoppers are browsing, there should be a cap on the number of products that will automatically load. This is why websites typically make shoppers click a “show more results” button instead of just displaying every product on a single page.

Product thumbnails aren’t the only thing that can slow down a webpage. Promo images and even text content elements like links, text boxes, and widgets also take time to load and will slow down a page if there are too many. To keep a page fast, site builders should minimize content elements.

Add a Chatbot to the Landing Page to Improve the Shopper Experience

Automated chatbots are a great way to add a personalized customer service tool to a website. Having one on a business's landing page helps customers get exactly where they want to go right away. These chatbots can be loaded with any number of commands, but their typical use is to assist in navigating a website.

To implement a chatbot, retailers can seek out a software provider like Freshchat and request a demo. Then they can work with a rep to ensure that the bot has all of the necessary commands to operate within their particular store.

Incorporate Roleplay Into Customer Service Training

While most sales-driven businesses train their employees in customer support, many don't focus enough on face-to-face or over-the-phone roleplay. This results in associates that have an idea of what to say in customer interactions but struggle to respond effectively in an active conversation. This is where incorporating roleplay can help.

Roleplay can involve face-to-face, over-the-phone, or email interactions that simulate an actual customer interaction. Any communication channel associates will use to respond to customers should have its own 1-to-1 roleplay training to ensure that the employees can navigate difficult customer service situations on their feet.

Offer Flexible and Convenient Credit Alternatives

One of the best ways to improve the shopper experience is to make sure they have the buying power to make whatever purchase they want. Consumer financing, provides this buying power and the flexibility to break up their purchase into payments that work for them.

These payment options not only increase customer satisfaction but also increase conversion rates by an average of 20-30% and average ticket size by an average of 30-50%. This creates the ultimate win-win for retailers and their customers.

Luckily, offering a variety of financing options is as easy as finding a quality software partner.

Improve the Shopper Experience With Skeps

Skeps offers a comprehensive, end-to-end consumer financing program that helps businesses modernize their entire payment process. We go above and beyond one-click payment, also offering a one-click application process for several different types of consumer financing, including:

• Point-of-Sale financing
• Consumer loans and leases
• Branded credit cards

If you’re looking to partner with a forward-thinking fintech company that will keep consumers' eyes on the purchase while offering best-in-class financing, Skeps is the perfect fit.