Convenience is often the name of the game when appealing to consumers, a fact that seems to be growing more pertinent in the wake of lockdowns with businesses focused on pivoting their strategy as much as they can to retain loyal customers and even stand out among the competition as more and more people are searching for products and services that fit into their new, largely at home, lifestyle. Before the Coronavirus, buying decisions were made on matters of preference, style, location, and sometimes even just on a whim. Now, all new factors are at play. Do you deliver to my door? Can I order, pay, and pick up with no contact? There are new requirements in the wake of where we are and whether or not they are here to stay, the businesses that adapt and shift strategies will be the ones left standing when this pandemic is over.

Enhancing your business value by offering convenience to your clients or customers not only helps attract new business but also keeps your current customers coming back again and again. Yet it can sometimes be hard to figure out just what ‘convenience’ means to your business, and if you should invest in it. You may simply sell products that cannot easily be delivered or require an in-person visit before the purchase. If you’re selling a service online, then it’s quite likely most of your convenience is dealt with through online means, and it’s hard to see how you can improve accessibility without compromising on security or the complexity of the service you offer.

Thankfully, there almost always is an improvement to be made and with so many digital solutions out there, nearly every business has the chance to make even minor adjustments.

Accepting Payments More Easily

Accepting payments easily and without unnecessary resistance is important. You may have noticed that in certain forward-thinking, technologically-apt stores, like the Apple store, the ‘Genius’ staff carry with them tablets that give them the means to schedule bookings, curate orders, and help you pay in the span of seconds.

Why not integrate that into your own business? It might be that while accepting orders from your front door, using an app that allows you to accept payments from your phone can be much more convenient - and right now, a safer means to conduct business for everyone. Little conveniences like this can help shave seconds off the interaction time without lessening the experience for either you or your clients.

Click And Collect / Order Forms
Of course, convenience is nothing if it fails to offer ease in the time of Covid-19. Consumers have had to switch up their purchasing habits quite deliberately in recent months, for obvious reasons. Some companies are now offering click and collect order forms, allowing for the pre-arrangement of retail purchases and minimizing contact times. Other businesses have started a local delivery effort, noting that having a couple of vans on the road all day is perhaps less expensive than completely closing down, even for a limited time. Some businesses have rolled out premium subscriptions to help organize all of their services in one easy bundle that can be reserved and paid online.

If you can move to the drawing board and consider what enterprise may be helpful for you and your brand, you may come across a better mode of offering your services or products in these times that might even become your own new normal.

Online Product Viewing & Descriptions
Sometimes, simply being more visible is all the convenience you need to apply. If you’re selling products or services online, taking the time to post clear and compelling product listings online can help visitors know exactly why they’re buying, and why they should buy it. This might involve clearly posting the technical specifications of your products in greater detail than before. It might mean uploading more pictures of each product, as well as 360-degree viewable photographs or writing better product descriptions.

While this is a small, seemingly insignificant improvement, the impact it can make may surprise you. In the One Nine Design shop, I’m often tempted to rush through the product page, grabbing a screenshot or two and calling it a day. But I’ve found that when I take the time to provide the little details about a product and showcase how it can help customers get the results they want, I get fewer questions and more buyers!

User Accounts
If your website platform allows it, offering user accounts can be a great way to retain loyal customers. By creating their own account, they can track their delivery information or change it, update their contact details, see their past orders, schedule returns, open support tickets, or perhaps make use of time-honored and exclusive promotions. And there are plenty of benefits for you, too! By offering customer accounts, you have the means to send direct, targeted emails to clients offering new product suggestions or to ask them for direct feedback.

Customer accounts can also help you gain a better understanding of who it is that uses your service, which provides a clearer understanding of your ideal audience or market.

So from offering contactless payment options to better online forms, optimized product descriptions, and customer accounts, the digital tools available to small businesses right now were designed to help you run your business more efficiently and offer a better client experience from beginning to end. Those businesses that choose to invest in these tools and continually explore and test ways to adapt will be the ones left standing at the end of the year with loyal customers who trust them.

What digital tools are you using? Tell us below in the comments!

Until next time,

Andrea

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