No matter what you’re selling online – apps, enterprise tech, or services – the customer experience your marketplace offers is arguably as important as the products themselves. That’s because in a B2B world increasingly powered by ecommerce, customers have an array of marketplaces to choose from. Why should they buy from yours?
The answer to that question, of course, needs to be two-fold: your marketplace needs to showcase a wide ecosystem of high-quality, integrated apps and supporting services and it needs to be an absolute pleasure to navigate.
Six ways to improve the customer experience within your marketplace and increase sales.
Your marketplace’s customer experience can be improved using a combination of the right technology, customer-focused design, and friction-busting selling strategies. Here are six ways to improve the customer experience offered by your marketplace:
Differentiate your marketplace with branding that puts the customer experience at the fore.
‘Branding’ isn’t just your logo, brand font, and color scheme; it’s so much more than that. It’s everything from your look and feel, to the content you create, the voice and tone of your messaging, the values your company espouses, and more. Importantly, every branding decision you make should put customer experience at the fore.
One way to do that is to stop thinking about listings pages as PDPs (Product Description Pages) and rather as PXPs (Product Experience Pages). This means focusing not just on what information you choose to include in listings, but also on the experience your customer will have as they browse, compare, and buy apps and services on your marketplace.
Of course, app or services details, pricing info, timelines, and customer reviews are all essential information that needs to be included in PXPs. But how this information is presented, accessed, and consumed by customers is where your particular marketplace branding can come to life.
We suggest making sure that your PXPs showcase the main product while remaining as easily shoppable as possible. For example, opt for more engaging layouts that encourage users to scroll. Z-patterned layouts draw the eye from left to right and help lead the user further down the page to view additional information.
Morphed’s marketplace infrastructure allows you to customize your apps or services marketplace to your brand’s look-and-feel, without the need for any custom code.
Improve the searchability of your marketplace.
In our previous post, Apps Marketplace Masterclass: Help customers find the tools they need, we look at different ways to improve the searchability of your marketplace. Making it as easy as possibly for users to find the tools, apps, and listings they need is one of the most powerful ways to improve the customer experience of your marketplace. Here’s a quick recap of the most important points:
- Make your search bar easy to spot
- Use filters strategically to help customers narrow down search results
- Use categories to help customers discover the tools available in your apps marketplace
- Leverage your CRM data to customize the user experience
Streamline the meeting booking process with automated meeting links.
This one is a great little CX quick win: Automated meeting links can be set up to automatically sync with your calendar, making it as easy as possible for customers to book a call or meeting time that works for you both with a single click. This cuts out the painfully protracted back-and-forth usually required for both parties to sift through their diaries to find a time that works both ways.
Use virtual assistants and text message reminders to stay connected to your customers.
As Ryan Gould points out, tailoring the customer experience to each customer is a powerful way to make your customers feel connected to your brand and to build brand loyalty. Well-timed, useful text messages reminders – whether they’re reminding a customer about an imminent meeting or prompting the execution of important routine ‘housekeeping’ tasks – personalize the customer experience through a direct and convenient channel.
Use ratings and reviews to help customers make purchase decisions.
Part of providing a good customer experience is removing as much friction from the selling process as possible. When a customer has everything they need to make a purchase decision at their fingertips, they’re more likely to click ‘buy now’ and less likely to leave the marketplace in order to carry out additional research.
Providing social proof in the form of customer ratings and reviews is a useful way to nudge new customers down the funnel. Morphed’s marketplace tech allows you to control which ratings and reviews you choose to share publicly and which you choose to use privately within the platform.
Delight customers with loyalty programs and surprise rewards.
Use loyalty incentives to encourage repeat purchases and reward existing customers. Referral programs that offer customers a discounted rate when they refer a new customer, for example, are an excellent way to reward a loyal customer while bringing in new business. Membership-based loyalty programs, on the other hand, offer members perks like insider training, first access to new features, members-only events, priority customer support, and so on. Encourage marketplace adoption by offering customers a discounted rate when they buy a partner’s app or services through your marketplace.
Take your marketplace customer experience to the next level with Morphed’s white-labeled marketplace infrastructure.
Morphed’s app and services marketplace technology is designed to deliver excellent user experiences – for both partners and customers. For example, the Morphed Customer Portal is a customer experience solution designed to delight customers by managing all client interactions in one centralized portal. Customers can access the portal online anytime, from anywhere, to browse app listings and packaged offerings, request custom quotes, chat to your team, make payment, and leave reviews.
Using a client-centric, centralized portal allows you to eliminate the possibility of a disjointed, confusing customer experience with multiple communication channels and too many points of contact. Instead, the entire brand interaction – whether the customer is talking to sales, or the delivery team, or the accounts department – is one smooth, cohesive customer experience.
