The mortar and stone retailers have Black Friday and you, as an online retailer, have Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday is the Monday after Black Friday, the biggest online shopping day of the year and it should be your most profitable one. However, if you don’t prepare for it, you can end up with total chaos, site crashes, and lost sales.
Handling Increased Online Orders
With an increase in business comes an increase of online traffic to your website. One way to avoid the hassle of online problems is to test your website. Figure out how much online traffic you expect and test for 30% above the projected amount. You can improve your customer’s online shopping experience by redesigning your websites to handle the increase in traffic, by increasing your computing capacity and by taking the extra steps needed or adding extra security where you have concerns. You also should integrate different system interfaces to make sure they’re compatible and running smoothly. Contact any outside vendors and internal resources you’re working with to make sure everyone is in sync. By working with your third party host providers, you can make sure customers can keep shopping online during high traffic periods without interruptions.
Taking Customer Service to the Next Step
When you have an increase in demand in sales there should also be a corresponding increase in customer service awareness. A contingency plan needs to be put together in case of new customer questions and for any unexpected crisis. Customer service reps who field calls need to be aware of promotions and new resources that are available. Excellent customer service will improve your customer’s overall buying experience and keep routine processes moving along quickly and smoothly. Make sure your customers can connect with your customer service reps through phone, email, and online, live chat, and help desk, mobile or social media. Also remember that pricing is important but customers still expect quality. They want their merchandise on time, the correct color, and size. They want value and they want to be impressed. If your customer service can’t deliver that promise, then you will lose that sale.
Your Customer Base
Before the holidays, you need to go through your customer base. Check through your email subscriber list. Has it been awhile since they shopped with you? Make sure that through new lists that customers who haven’t purchased anything for some time from you can now purchase by extra special discount offers. If there are no responses to your offers then you can remove them to improve your list’s quality. With your loyal customers, you can send them an exclusive Cyber Monday or discount coupon code to use on Cyber Monday. Loyal customers are those customers who subscribe to your email newsletters and are your repeat customers. You can run shipping specials and product promotions also making sure that the content is SEO friendly.
Cyber Monday can be a wonderful profit-making day for you if you can deliver great products, efficient customer service and on-time deliveries. By creating a pleasant shopping experience, your customers will leave with a positive image of your online store and you will not only get the sale but possibly a repeat customer as well.
Photo Courtery of MorgueFiles
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