Happy Thanksgiving, Squad.

While some of you absolutely can not wait for a holiday meal with a weird uncle who hates taxes or a cousin who knew about 9/11 before it happened, I know some of us (me) would prefer sitting in a corner getting some silence.

The goal of today’s newsletter is to give you a pocket of peace in this otherwise chaotic weekend.

7 minute read about a topic usually slept on, but one that has had a HUGE emergence in DTC over the last few months (no, it’s not Applovin.)

Traditionally, CX conversations are focused on elevating the post-purchase experience.

But the reality is that the customer experience starts long before the checkout button is ever clicked - it begins the moment a shopper lands on your website.

How do shoppers feel as they navigate your site? Are they satisfied and confident, or confused as hell?

I know that creating a personalized and delightful on-site experience is generally geared towards increasing conversion rates–not our primary concern. 

But it goes beyond that: it's about proactively creating an environment where shoppers feel valued, informed, and confident in their choices from the very beginning.

In many ways, the onsite experience is the foundation of the entire customer experience.

With the right approach, a well-crafted onsite experience:

1. Builds trust and credibility
2. Increases overall satisfaction and loyalty
3. Reduces post-purchase inquiries and support

This week, I'm collaborating with my friends at Visually to dive deep into the key components of the onsite shopper journey. 

You’ll see how specific onsite experiences impact the overall customer experience and share actionable steps you can take to optimize your website.

The beauty of all of this is that you don’t need to stop at just hypothesizing; you can actually do an A/B test and see the impact. 

Let’s dive in.

This week’s newsie is brought to you by Visually!

The Visually team has decades of experience leading CRO for 8 and 9-figure brands, which should not surprise you if you’ve had a chance to see what they’ve built. The platform is essentially a suite of CRO tools that enables you to build, personalize, and test literally any and every component on your site (with no code at all).

They power onsite experiences for over 1000 Shopify brands and are deeply involved in helping brands continuously formulate and execute their onsite strategy.

Visually offers all subscribers of the newsie a free storefront audit, with no strings attached.

They’ll also give you a 35-day free trial if you get started before New Year's.

5 Onsite Experiences To Transform The Customer Experience

Ok, let’s dive in. We promise to keep this simple, practical, and tactical.

1. Highlighting Return Policies:

For first-time shoppers, a brand’s return policy might be the ultimate roadblock to checkout… though you’d be shocked how many brands fail to communicate their policy effectively.

It’s not enough to simply lay it out on an FAQ page. Shoppers should not have to navigate a maze of pages on your site only to discover that they are actually eligible for free 60-day returns.

If you’ve got a favorable return policy, or even just the option to return, you should show it off in as many places as possible - the product page, cart, and checkout are no-brainers. Not only will you reassure more reluctant shoppers, but you will likely also experience fewer support inquiries regarding returns. 

Perhaps you have a more nuanced return policy for specific items - final sale, perishables, etc. In such scenarios, you’ll want to personalize the appropriate message for the respective cart so the shopper is properly informed.

We know what you’re thinking. How will this impact returns? Will we see an uptick in returned products with shoppers more aware of our policy? Go ahead and test the experience - you can track returns out of the box.

2. Coupon Code Reminders:

Tis the season of giving…discounts! Yay for shoppers, headaches for CX folks. If your holiday promotions are powered by coupon codes, there’s a good chance shoppers write in after forgetting to actually use their coupon codes.

This usually happens because many onsite experiences remain disconnected from ads and other marketing campaigns, creating unnecessary friction. A new shopper is likely to be frustrated if their 15% off welcome email redirects to a site that has no mention of the promotion, no reminder of the code, and no details on eligible products. This shopper will go running back to their email, and then, well, you’ve lost them in the inbox…

There’s always a debate when it comes down to applying the coupon on behalf of the shopper. Well, when it comes to CX, we all know what the right thing to do is. Give the shopper the rewards they were looking for, and don’t make them have to work for it. 

There are two ways to approach this: a simple code reminder on the product, cart, and checkout pages, or actually applying the code automatically.

Go ahead and test them out - see what works best for your shoppers, and make sure to take a look at the overall impact on profitability.

3. Onsite Cart Abandonment:

If you’ve been in the weeds of holiday shopping, you know how hard it is to keep track of the carts you have filled across all your shopping tabs. You probably get abandoned cart emails, but your inbox is so overflowing with promotions that you don’t even bother.

Try implementing an onsite cart abandonment experience. Time is ticking when a shopper lands on your site - this season more than ever. If a shopper makes an effort to come back to your site, make it so easy for them to see their cart items and seamlessly direct them back to the cart or checkout. 

This is one of our favorites! Trust us; you’ll want to test it out!

4. VIP Experiences

At this point, we’re passed the early access sales, but BFCM is not the only opportunity to introduce early access. For loyalty members and VIP customers, you’ll want to engage and reward them throughout the year with early access and exclusive opportunities. 

Whether it’s priority access to new collections or exclusive sales, go the extra mile to make these customers feel special and remind them why they are loyalty members. 

5. Out Of Stock Recommendations:

Waited too long to pull the trigger and the product you’ve been watching is now out of stock? Happens to all of us. Not a good feeling. At that moment, the shopper is on the verge of closing the tab and moving on, sour and never wanting to come back. 

But what if we could save them by recommending similar products they are likely to be interested in? Perhaps we can turn the out-of-stock frustration into a positive discovery experience.

 It might be too late to implement this holiday season, but this should be a staple on your product pages whenever an item goes out of stock.

Building onsite experiences may not be a focus of your regular conversations, but we encourage you to start thinking about them. You can make your CX team’s job much easier if you set the right tone from the first touchpoint and help your shoppers browse and check out more confidently.

You don’t have to be an experienced designer or developer because building experiences in Visually is effortless - no need for long product and design processes. Design and execute in minutes. Test, iterate, and repeat.

Not sure where to begin? You can count on us for the ideas!

xoxo,

Visually team

That’s it for this week!

Cheers, 

Eli 💛

P.S. Looking for inspo on your next email/sms campaign?

I know you will love this.