Customer experience is everything when you’re working with mobile technology
Mobile commerce has to cater to the everyday needs of customers, for example to minimise time and effort while shopping. Below, Andreas Kopatz, Business Development Manager at INTERSHOP explains why all mcommerce retailers should focus on customer needs over all.
The better a mobile website or mobile app adapts to the needs of its target customers, the better the chance of success. The implementation of a consistent customer experience across all different channels also becomes increasingly important.
Since consumers are using mobile and other devices like TVs or POS kiosks simultaneously it’s is necessary to keep all kinds of information consistent across all these touch points. In a lot of cases mobile is the bridge between the different channels and can help the retailer to understand consumers’ shopping behavior.
Using coupons, location-triggered marketing and QR codes on billboard or street advertising will bring the consumer on track for your own brand. So a consistent user experience from the in-store experience to the online channel is essential to the success of any commerce initiative.
Mobile apps provide users with a quick and easy way to navigate the shopping experience. The retailer can use all the technical features of the platform and so deliver an extraordinary shopping experience to the customer. While developing a mobile app, merchants need to pay attention to how text and images are displayed, and whether audio and video is incorporated.
In addition, they can take advantage of smartphone features such as GPS, camera and handshake functionality.
For example using GPS to guide a mobile user to the nearest store or using the camera of a smartphone to scan the barcode on the billboard and get extensive product information on product or even to get the voucher code that can be redeemed in-store.”
But, apps are only downloaded if customers know the brand, have a high affinity to it and if they are pointed to it.
Usability and functionality are the most important things to consider. Since mobile devices are evolving and also screen size and input capabilities are different from model to model it gets more complicated to design “the full-blown app”.
A smart way of driving revenue through the mobile channel is to use a responsive design for the shop, so that at least the content and the overall experience is the same all over. In some cases it makes sense to reduce functionality and tailor content and design for a mobile app or web site appropriately.
Retailers with huge catalogues might concentrate on features such as search and navigation, while merchants with media-rich sites might focus on campaigns and promotions. At the end merchants need to consider several other variables in order to be able to offer an intuitive shopping experience:
1. Who is my audience? Age, gender, geography, devices, etc.
2. What products do I sell?
3. what is the value that my app will bring to my audience?
4. Do I have enough budget to build a mobile app or would a mobile-optimized website be a cheaper and simpler solution?
Find out more at www.InterShop.com
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