Although an “excellent Customer Experience” (CX) is particularly pleasurable for customers and is considered the A&O for the virtual shopping trip, these three words cause goose bumps and massive overtaxing for many companies.

Where products become more and more similar, markets more and more transparent and prices more and more competitive, companies can often only set themselves apart from the competition through a unique customer experience. That’s also what the figures say: 88.3% of the companies see CX as a clear differentiator in competition.

However, in order to actually outpace the competition, the experience at every customer touchpoint should be filled with new experiences, leave a lasting emotional impression on users and be highly individual.

We’ll show you inspiring best practises from the big players, from which you can certainly learn a lot!

In the age of the customer, everything in digital marketing should be oriented towards the consumer. This is because the consumer ultimately decides when and where to buy, which brand he prefers and with which he establishes a loyal relationship.

The cosmetics group L’Oréal is particularly aware of this aspect and is in close contact with its customers. Personal contact and direct interaction with L’Oréal users are particularly important. To this end, the beauty giant offers its customers comprehensive, detailed information about products, brands and availability on the Internet. The topic of sustainability is also explained transparently, thus creating a basis of trust.

L’Oréal also impresses through the use of augmented reality experiences, where customers can virtually try out cosmetics or hairstyles. Through the interaction of information and experience, the brand can also be experienced online and creates a customer experience that is informative and effective at the same time, is fun for the customer and will be remembered positively in the long term.

For example, the search for the perfect lipstick no longer has to be combined with a half-day city trip, but can simply take place from the couch.

Online shops usually offer a wide range of products from a wide variety of categories. As a customer, it’s usually not that easy to keep track of them, especially when surfing on the move. Because smartphones or tablets display a much more compressed layout of the shop due to their reduced display size.

In order to guide users through the product jungle on every device and at the same time provide them with a positive shopping experience, the product lists in particular should be optimally sorted. In the fast-paced world of the Internet, no customer will be able to deal more intensively with pages 2-5 of your online-shop just to find the perfect product.

The sports goods retailer Tennis-Point shows how this can be put into practice. This is with over 12.000 products one of the prominent on-line offerers of tennis articles in Germany.

In order to give users an overview in the shop, Tennis-Point focuses on a more in-depth individualization of the product list sorting, which adapts to the current shopping situation of each individual user.

How does this work? – With ODOSCOPE’s situationalization platform, the retailer was able to consolidate all his historical (raw) data and use it to individualize the customer experience. Based on situative data, the system automatically calculates for each visitor in real time which of the shop’s products are particularly suited to individual interests and preferences. In this way, every user, whether known or unknown, receives a tailor-made online shop.

Mobile users in particular benefit because they receive a product list that exactly matches their needs despite the shop’s compressed presentation. The times in which users searched totally desperately and endlessly for the right tennis racket, the coolest shoes or the hippest outfit for the court are therefore over.

By using ODOOSCOPE, the retailer achieves peak uplifts of up to 65% in his shops with mobile views of the product lists.

Since customers are more mobile today than ever, they switch back and forth between device and channel during the course of the day, depending on mood, situation or time of day.

So in order to get the most out of all contact points and provide a seamless experience across all channels, companies should consider an omnichannel strategy that connects offline and online activities.

Electronics retailer MediaMarkt shows how this works in practice. Here, for example, customers can conveniently buy their desired product online and pick it up afterwards in a market of their choice. This not only saves shipping costs, it also eliminates the tedious coordination of appointments that is often necessary when delivering appliances such as washing machines or refrigerators. It may even be the case that the product purchased is already available on the market and the item purchased using the “Click & Collect” method can be picked up on the same day. The waiting time for the purchased products is also reduced. All relevant information about the ordering process as well as collection slips or availabilities and order status are conveniently available to customers in the company’s own app.

Omnichannel: The combination of online and offline Customer Experience! 

The sentence “This might also appeal to you” has guaranteed every customer already once read. It is usually placed prominently above the latest recommendations of the online shop. But what if the presented products don’t please at all? When they are not needed at all? Or if exactly these articles were already purchased years ago? Then the classic recommendation is useless. In the worst case scenario, the virtual shopping trip is annoyingly interrupted and continued elsewhere. An excellent customer experience looks different!

The online shop for cosmetics asambeauty.de is doing the right thing: Instead of playing out classic product recommendations that are neither directed at the interests nor the needs of the users, the beauty giant is focusing on the next generation of recommendations: this includes all information about the surfing behaviour of historical users that resemble the current visitor both in terms of his personal interests (e.g. skin care, hair care) and of situational attributes (e.g. referrer, device, browser). Thus the product recommendations correspond much more likely to the wishes of the current shopper and invite to continue shopping. These tailor-made recommendations can be placed on the homepage, the product detail page or in the shopping basket, for example.

Users thus feel understood throughout their entire customer journey, spend more time in the shop and receive individual shopping inspirations that encourage spontaneous purchases.