CHAPTER 6

Delivering the Online Customer

Experience
 Introduction

Internet marketers have to work hard to develop consumer trust and deliver a great customer
experience for their audience.

Online customer experience is the concept of online brand promise (the combination of rational
and emotional factors of using company’s online services that influences customers’ perceptions
of a brand online)

The factors that influence the online customer experience can be presented in a pyramid form of
success factors (developed by de Chernatony, 2001)
 Introduction

The online customer experience pyramid – success factors

 Introduction

• Digital marketing should also consider these issue that associated with online
customer experience:

Ease of locating the site through search engine

Services provided by partners online on other web sites

Quality of outbound communication such as news letter

Quality of processing inbound email

Integration with offline communication

Planning Web Site Design and Redesign Projects

The design process

involves analysing the
Planning is necessary
needs of owners and Without a structured
since design of a site
users of a site then plan, costly reworking is
must occur before
deciding upon the best inventible..
creation of web pages.
way to build the site to
fulfill these needs.
Summary of the process of website development
Planning Web Site Design and Redesign Projects

• The planning process are as follows:

Pre Content
Analysis and
development development
design
tasks and testing

Publishing or
Pre-launch Ongoing
launching the
promotion promotion
site
Who is involved in a website project?
Site
sponsors

Stakeholder Site owner

Project
Webmaster
manager

Content
Site designer
developer
 Initiation of the web site project

Before the analysis, design and creation of the website, all major projects will
have an initial phase.

At this phase, the objectives of the website are reviewed, to assess whether it is
worthwhile investing in the website and to decide the amount to invest.
 Initiation of the web site project

• At initial stage, company should:

1. Domain 2. Uniform
3. Selecting a
name selection resources
hosting provider
and registration locators (URLs)

4. Website 5. The
performance availability of
optimisation the website
Defining site or app requirements (Researching
site users’ requirements)

Analysis phase involves using different marketing research techniques to find out the
needs of the site audience.

These needs can then be used to drive the design and content of the web site.

In analysis we are seeking to answer the following types of ‘who’, what, why, how’
questions.
To help answer these questions, web designer commonly use a research-based
approach known as user-centered design.

Used ethnographic or customer personas to build the website design.

Defining site or app requirements (Researching site
users’ requirements)

1. Business
requirement Usability
Key requirement
for an online
presence 2. User
Accessibility
requirement

Information
needs
 1. Business Requirement

• It is business requirement to achieve marketing outcomes.

• Developed a marketing-led site design also known as
persuasion marketing (site design elements are developed to
achieve customer acquisition, retention and communication
of marketing message.
• For example, for customer acquisition, appropriate incentives
for customer acquisition and permission marketing must be
devised.
 2. User Requirement (Usability)

A website design should Usability involves 2 key

ensure the user interface project activities:
Usability refers to how
of the site is learnable, 1. Expert reviews (to
easy the product (e.g.
memorable, error free, identify problems with
website) are to use.
efficient and gives user previous design).
satisfaction. 2. Usability testing
 2. User Requirement (Web accessibility
requirements)

Web accessibility is about However, increased usage For example, providing

allowing all users of a website
of mobile devices also accessible website to the
to interact wit it regardless of
makes consideration of disable people such as the
disabilities they may have, or
accessibility important. images in the website
the web browser or platform
they are using to access the should have enough color
site. contrast.
2. User Requirement (Information needs)

LOCALISATION REVIEWING COMPETITOR’S WEBSITES

Decision on web site design whether to Benchmarking of competitors’ website

include specific content for particular to compete effectively with competitors
countries. that already have web sites.

A site may need to support customers

Benchmark on its ease of use, the
from a range of countries with different
impact of its design, marketing
product needs, language differences and
communication techniques, services
cultural differences. E.g converting the
offered.
website
Designing the user experience

The design phase is

Once analysis has
critical to a successful
determined the
website since it will
business and user
determine the quality
needs for a site, the
of users’ experience.
site can be designed.

A good experience is
determine by the structure of
the site, menu choices and
searching facilities.
 Designing the user experience

Customer – oriented design.

To achieve high quality content through

design, company should create a
customer – oriented design web site.

Design is based on optimising the user

experience according to all factors such
as the content is detailed, clear, up to
date, easy to find
 Designing the user experience (Evaluating
designs)

According to Bevan (1999b), to test the effectiveness design for usaility is

depend on 3 areas:

Effectiveness Productivity Satisfaction

Can users complete their tasks Are tasks completed in an Are users satisfied with the
correctly and completely acceptable length of time interaction
 Elements of site design

SITE DESIGN AND

SITE STYLE SITE PERSONALITY VISUAL DESIGN
STRUCTURE

• The overall structure of • An effective website • The style elements can • Visual design include
the site. design will have a style be combined to considering on:
• For example, easy to that is communicated develop a personality • 1. The speed of
read, adequate font through use of colour, for a site. downloading graphics.
size, uncrowded images and layout. • For example business • 2. The screen
presentation. audience often resolution
requires detailed • 3. Colors on screen
information while • 4. Different access
consumer site is devices.
usually more
graphically intensive.
 Development and testing of content

Marketers do not need an in-depth understanding of development technologies as they will

use specialist for this.

Marketers have to know on the aspects of customer experience that can be affected by the
tools and development methodologies used.

Marketers also can also test to make sure the systems have been built successfully.
Development and testing of content (Testing the
experience)
• Marketing managers responsible for web site need to have a basic awareness of web site
development and testing. Testing steps include:

Test the content Test all interactive

displays correctly on facilities and
Test plug-ins
different web integration with
browsers company databases

Test to ensure all

Test adherence to
internal land links to Test spelling and
corporate image
external sites are grammar
standard
valid
 Online retail merchandising

In online, presenting relevant

products and promotions to
For online retail site owners,
site visitors which should help
merchandising is a crucial
boost key measures of site
activity.
performance such as
conversion rate.
 Online retail merchandising

• Some of common approaches used are:

Expanding navigation through synonyms

Applying faceted navigation or search approaches

Featuring the bestselling products prominently

Use bundling

Use customer ratings and reviews

Use of product visualisation systems

 Site promotion or ‘traffic building’

•
Promotion of a site in order to boost visitors is a
significant topic that is part of the strategyof
developing a website.

Particularly important issues that must be considered

during the course of site design are search engine
optimisation and the experience delivered on landing
pages.
Example of site promotion
 Service Quality

Delivering service
Marketers can apply
quality in e-commerce
the elements of service
can be assessed
Frequently used are quality on which
through reviewing
based on the concept Parasuraman et al
existing marketing
of a service quality. (1985) suggest that
frameworks for
consumers judge
determining levels of
companies.
service qulaity.
 Dimensions of Service Quality

• Tangibles dimensions is influenced by ease of use

Tangibles and visual appeal based on the structural and
graphic design of the site.

• Depend on the availability of the website – in

Reliability other words, how easy it is to connect to the
website as a user.

• In an email context, assurance can considered as

Assurance the quality of response
• For example, response to the consumer enquiry.
 Dimensions of Service Quality

Empathy
• Emphaty in e-commerce can be
achieved through email and web
communication.