Published on 07/06/2022 by Any Business.Com.Au

Digital Detail: Online Essentials for Today's Small Businesses

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way business owners interact with customers and run day-to-day operations. More than ever, consumers want and expect businesses to provide online interactions, so as a small business owner it's important to keep up to date with the latest trends and online opportunities.

While there's no one size fits all solution, below are some of the key digital trends small businesses should look to be across.

Online shopping and payments

Online shopping kicked into overdrive during the pandemic and has showed no signs of slowing down.

The need and desire to have fast and easy online shopping, payment and delivery became a priority for many who were unable or unwilling to leave home to shop for essentials, gifts, groceries and everything in between.

Online shopping has become the norm for many who had never done it before. A good portion of growth in online purchases is attributed to people aged 50-75 years old, who found it to be the answer to their lockdown problems and they learned that they could do contactless digital payments both online and offline.

If you're a small business, the time to start selling online was yesterday. In a mid/post-pandemic market, everyone is an online shopper.

This year, a priority for business owners should be to make their e-commerce process as seamless as possible and consider a broader demographic.

Video at all stages of the customer journey

Last year, many businesses used video throughout the customer journey from start to finish. Video allows businesses to invite their customers closer to the brand by offering them education and entertainment.

Once a customer has engaged with a business, video can serve as a great tool for providing assistance from afar. Using QR codes to connect customers to a video tutorial or more information about a product is a great way to encourage engagement after your product has been purchased.

Expectations in terms of the professional quality of videos have also been relaxed. With the rise of social media video platforms, businesses have been given the opportunity to show off their creative and playful sides by recreating trending videos. Imperfections in videos like these humanise businesses and provide a new way to explain their brand personality.

Using video to engage with your audience before, during and after the consumer purchase cycle in order to encourage more engagement is fast becoming a valuable tool for small businesses.

High production costs can be avoided by creating the videos yourself which also enables you to share a bit more character about your business with your consumers.

Improvements in customer service

Businesses have had to be more empathetic with their customers in recent times. Many businesses that have been successful throughout the pandemic haven't taken a cost savings approach, they have gone for growth.

Those growth strategies have included investing in technology to improve the customer experience and increasing the number of customer service staff in order to provide a human connection for those staff working from home.

As time has progressed, a personalised service has become a basic expectation of customers. This means remembering personal information, such as location, preferences and shopping history, and providing tailored recommendations based on that information.

Live chat is no longer a "nice-to-have" feature. It's best practice for any modern business website. For customers, having immediate access to a customer service assistant is a big plus because it gives them the opportunity to have questions answered on the spot without needing to pick up the phone or wait for an email response.

It's now imperative that small businesses use their existing e-commerce data to provide personalised recommendations for repeat customers and online reviews to improve general customer service. Live chat will enable small businesses to be there when customers need them - a big plus in today's fast paced, outcomes driven world.

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AnyBusiness.com.au

Curtis is a leading expert in the business-for-sale industry, serving as a senior content creator at anybusiness.com.au.

With a career spanning over fifteen years, Curtis has accumulated extensive knowledge in the domain of business sales, acquisitions, and valuations. His deep understanding of market dynamics and his ability to translate complex industry jargon into accessible insights make him a trusted resource for entrepreneurs and business owners looking to buy or sell businesses.

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