How to improve customer experience during Black Friday and Cyber Monday

How to improve customer experience during Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Black Friday and Cyber Monday is an incredibly important time of the year, both for customers and businesses. The former can buy something they’ve been dreaming about with a nice discount, and the latter can grow their sales, raise brand awareness, and win many new clients.

However, some big questions remain.

How to make sure every customer enjoys shopping with your business? How to make their experience special? How to serve every customer with exceptional care with so many people shopping on the same day?

Well, look no further!

This article has all the information you need to improve the customer experience for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Read on and get ready for a successful weekend of sales.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2022: What to expect

Every Black Friday and Cyber Monday is unique in its own way. Two years ago, in 2020, when the world was struggling with substantial COVID-19 lockdowns, the main shopping events of the year took place online. In 2021, in contrast, record numbers of people headed back to physical stores.

What can we expect in 2022?

According to 2022 Black Friday and Cyber Monday statistics, a whopping 60% of online buyers plan to spend more money than last year, which is good news for all eCommerce stores. Online shops have to intensify their efforts to be noticed on Black Friday and ensure that the customer experience is outstanding. No one wants potential clients to drop mid-purchase, right?

Again, the volume of people shopping is very high. According to the NRF report, more than 158 million people shop during this time of discounts in the U.S. alone. Each of those customers is picky and demanding in their own way, and it is your responsibility as a business to provide them with a positive experience.

Below are some valuable pieces of advice you can implement to improve the customer experience for the upcoming Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Read on to master each of them.

5 tips to improve customer experience during Black Friday and Cyber Monday

1. Automate your customer support

Customer support automation is such a buzzword today that many businesses have stopped paying attention to it. However, it is a big mistake that you want to avoid making.

Many people think support automation means getting rid of your human agents and replacing them with a bot. However, on the contrary, adequately executed automation allows humans and chatbots to work together in unison, offering fast and efficient support to all types of customers. Automation is especially handy when online stores are swamped with Black Friday orders and many customers are waiting to be served.

There are lots of advantages to implementing automated customer support for Black Friday. First, it reduces the overall customer support costs since you don’t have to hire an additional workforce. Support automation is also an excellent solution for overcoming time zones and language barriers. Generally, chatbots can speak multiple languages and are globally available 24/7. In addition, even if you’ve never had a chatbot, you can set one up right before the start of Black Friday as many of them don’t require any coding and come with ready-made templates.

If done right, automation will become a great helper for your support team. It will take care of basic (though very time-consuming) inquiries, while your human agents can focus on more complicated, intellectually demanding requests. It’s a win-win situation, especially during such a busy season as Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

When automation is in place, it’s time to consider your support team’s performance. Read on to learn how to get them ready.

2. Train your support agents for Black Friday

When it comes to improving customer experience, your support team is the main hero of the story. It applies to Black Friday and any other time of the year. Thus, it’s vital to take time to prepare them for the major shopping spree of the year.

To be more ready in advance, you can invest in special training on handling stress and keeping up good support levels with a high number of support requests coming. Another good idea is to brainstorm how you can reduce the time it takes to give a response and train your team accordingly. Carefully plan the workflow for Black Friday and think about potential backup in case something doesn’t go according to your plan.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are challenging times for any support team. However, with the right level of preparation and motivation, it is possible to maintain stellar customer support and improve every customer’s shopping experience.

As you probably know, there is no improvement possible without feedback. This is another essential thing to cover in preparation for the Black Friday weekend. Keep reading to find out how to go about it.

3. Implement customer feedback to introduce improvement as you go

Customer feedback is one of the most valuable sources of sustainable improvement. Customer feedback is not just a review of your product. It is everything your customers share with you regarding their experience with your website, brand, support team, service, and everything else they encounter. All in all, it’s an opportunity to get unique, firsthand insights and introduce improvements based on them.

You might wonder whether Black Friday is the right time for feedback since there is so much stuff to take care of. Well, it is, and if the feedback you receive at the start of discounts is acted upon, you have a good chance to become a top seller that customers love by the end of the discount period.

How to gather customer feedback when there is a shortage of time and people? Service automation is a game-changer here, too. Chatbots can take over the duty of asking customers to leave feedback, and then an allocated person from the team will ensure this feedback is acted upon in a timely and efficient manner.

Speaking of efficiency, fast is a synonym for good when it comes to customer service. How to ensure prompt service during this busy time? Read on to find out.

4. Make sure your checkout is fast and smooth

Your checkout is the place where you do not want to district customers. They are almost there to make the purchase, and it’s your responsibility to make sure it’s a fast, smooth, and clean process.

It’s vital to ensure minimum distractions like pop-ups, sidebars, headers, footers, and the like during checkout. In addition, make sure that you don’t ask customers to fill out too long forms with their personal information. Everything must happen as fast as possible with clear guidelines and steps.

To sum it up, ensure you have a single-page checkout with all necessary product information and a visible checkout button. Don’t make it obligatory to create an account on your website. And remember to introduce a guest checkout option.

5. Implement omnichannel support

Lastly, to improve customer experience during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, ensure that your support is omnipresent. Interacting with customers through channels other than your own websites dramatically increases your chances of scoring a purchase (and a happy customer).

With a live chat and a chatbot on your website, think about connecting messenger apps like Instagram, Facebook Messenger, or Whatsapp. Many people prefer interacting with a brand through such apps instead of going directly to the company website.

With your customers in mind, introduce your support where they expect it to be. Diversified support is great at any time, but especially for busy days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Conclusions

As you can see, it is crucial to make sure your customers are satisfied during this busy shopping season. Support improvement should be a sustainable change that lasts over time. However, even some last-minute changes can make a whole lot of difference when it comes to the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping spree.

To make a big difference in customer experience, you have to think about automating your customer support and make sure your human support agents are trained. Also, pay close attention to customer feedback, make your checkout fast and smooth, and don’t forget about omnichannel support. These simple steps will help you rock the upcoming Black Friday and Cyber Monday.