Everyone who works in your organization should provide value, from the CEO all the way down to the latest hire. Maximizing that value is up to you as the business owner. However, many companies forget one of their hardest working and most loyal employees and brand ambassadors: their website.
As early as 2014, Forrester was pointing out that “Software is a critical strategic asset, not an operational nice-to-have,” and insisting that software must be designed to enhance your brand. It’s the first contact many customers have with your organization; in a way, the experience that your website offers IS your brand, as far as consumers are concerned.
If that experience is poor due to a clunky user interface (UI), complex layout, difficult navigation and non-intuitive processes, consumers will go elsewhere. Creating a high-quality website equipped with the power to deliver an outstanding first impression and a seamless customer experience is critical to creating and maintaining brand loyalty.
What’s Your Website Capable Of?
Your website is a 24/7 salesperson, educational resource, trainer, troubleshooter, support system, influencer and recruiter. It provides the first and last impression many of your customers will retain of your business, and builds brand loyalty from the first second they spend on it to the last.
A site should have the capability to greet your customers, ask how it can help them, and show them where to find what they need. It can up its game by offering suggestions and insights, predicting customer needs, and providing fast, easy checkout options. Finally, it can arrange delivery of the product, answer questions, and provide support after the purchase is made.
What does all of this mean? You should be looking at your site as if it were an employee — providing it with everything it needs to increase its productivity and maximize your investment in it.
Cost Isn’t The Whole Picture: Investment Is
If you look at tools and tech from only a cost standpoint, you’ll miss how impactful they can be as an investment. There will always be more cost-efficient options, but will they deliver ROI? You can only get a return on investment if you actually invest. But money will eventually have an ROI, as long as you don’t look at it as a sunk cost instead of an important part of your company’s growth pattern.
When you think about your ecommerce tools and integrations as INVESTMENTS instead of CAPEX or OPEX, you can create a shift in perception that allows you to leverage your website as your star employee. It never quits, it is ceaselessly loyal, and — given the right toolkit — it can outperform your entire workforce when it comes to giving customers the experience they want.
Tool and Tech Investment Delivers Massive Returns
Deloitte notes that providing tools and technologies that help employees execute business processes and functions is one of the best ways to raise productivity and efficiency. By investing in the things your employees need to do their job efficiently and well, you improve not only their experience and usefulness but customer experiences as well.
The same can be said for your website. If you’ve given your site a clunky interface, neglected to provide integration between different parts of it, failed to provide necessary tools to get things done, and crippled its usability from a customer point of view, you’ve made it almost impossible for your website to do its job.
No one wants to deal with a company website that
- Makes navigating the system to buy and rebuy more difficult than necessary
- Allows purchases to be made that are later canceled due to faulty inventory
- Can’t provide information on complete (on and offline) order history
- Feels like it is disconnected and out-of-sync whenever new functionalities are added
How erpCommerce TM Can Help
Pixafy’s erpCommerce solution is the ideal tool to give your website in order to:
- Streamline workflows and purchase or reorder flows
- Create a Single Point of Truth for all of your data
- Sync your customers’ online and offline purchases and order histories
- Scale your website capability and functionality seamlessly as your business grows
Our integrated platform keeps step with your business and empowers your website to deliver the best possible customer experience at all times. With erpCommerce, you give your website the tools it needs to become the best employee ever, and you can reap the ROI of that investment for years to come.
For more information about Pixafy and erpCommerce contact us today for a free demonstration.
