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If there is one good thing that the pandemic has brought to entrepreneurs, it’s the way the playing field has leveled regardless of whether you are a small or medium-sized business. With more people resorting to online shopping and e-commerce in general, big and small brands find themselves at the same starting point of the race with their bigger competitors. However, with this development comes new demands, in this case, the question of how to make business convenient to your target market comes to play.

To prove this, why don’t we take a look at some numbers? In a market research by Linnworks titled ‘The Effortless Economy: A New Age of Retail,’ 1,000 consumers were surveyed to take a closer look at possible changes in consumer behavior. According to the results, 76 percent say that convenience is their top consideration when selecting a retailer while 75 percent claim that they value convenience more than they did pre-pandemic. These are very important figures for entrepreneurs who want to raise thriving businesses in this new age regardless of their size and popularity. The equation for it sounds simple: offer convenience + good products = thriving businesses.

But how exactly do you do it? We discuss all the ways you can optimize to make your business convenient for you and your customers.

Set up an easy reservation and online appointment system

Despite restrictions loosening a bit in major places now, many establishments are still expected to continue with their redacted customer capacity. If you have a physical store, one of the first things you have to set up is a smooth reservation and online appointment strategy. Consider where you are going to house it—is it going to be on your web page or can your customers do online reservations via your social media platforms? By practice, it’s best to have a system that anyone can access online assuming not all of your customers feel comfortable calling or texting you for an appointment. You can easily use free online tools too like Calendly or even Google forms.

Think mobile

As we retreated back into our homes, most—if not all of us—started living through our phones for everything. Thriving businesses, more than ever, understand the importance of an easy-to-use online and mobile shopping experience. This also goes beyond just creating mobile-optimized sites in terms of product browsing and checkout. It’s a whole ecosystem that involves considering specific factors like mobile site speed, page load time, and even sales copy. Pro-tip, refrain from making your customers sign-up for an account with your website first before making a purchase because this is an additional step that can create drop-offs in interest.

Provide A+ customer service

In a time when people are restricted to interact with others, a successful business in a pandemic knows how important it has become for their customers to feel the connection between them and a real human being behind a brand. Customers may value convenience, but at the end of the day, connectivity is still an important factor, especially when it comes to building brand loyalty. This is where good customer service support comes to play. Is your business easily accessible in case someone wants to ask something about your product or ask for returns? Research by HubSpot says that 90 percent of customers consider fast replies as a very important factor when rating a brand. How can your target market reach you? How do your CS representatives handle questions or complaints?

If in case you don’t have room to offer customer service 24/7, you can always utilize other tools that can fill up the holes. One of the easiest options is to use a chatbot that you can pre-program beforehand to answer simple questions. They may not be the same as providing a personal interaction between a real service representative and your customer but you can always improve the experience by personalizing your chatbot flow. Texting support is also a good idea and you can choose between providing a live text agent or a pre-programmed texting sequence for your business.

Perfect your shipping system

When talking about providing good customer experience, we’re talking about the whole system. It’s not just about how good your shopping and checkout process is or not even your customer service. A successful business during the pandemic also has an optimized shipping process because, at the end of the day, the only thing your customer will care about is if their orders reach their doorstep. This is the reason why it’s incredibly important to source for a good shipping and logistics provider to partner with for your operations.

You also have to consider other factors, too. For example, one of the reasons behind abandoned carts is the shipping and delivery fee. Make your business more convenient by offering different shipping options to your market so that they have more room to choose the rates. Want to up the game? You can even consider offering free shipping—though you have to check your profit margin first before going down this route since you will technically be the one shouldering the expenses.

You also have to take a look at the product handling and of course, delivery time. What are the approximate times of delivery to the areas you are servicing? How sure are you that they can bring your product in one piece to your customer?

Of course, as a business owner, you shouldn’t only be considering the side of your market. You have to choose a shipping partner that is convenient for you to use, too. This is especially important if you are a small business or a one-man team. Take for example how we do things here at MyKartero. Not only do we promise to provide the best delivery experience to your customers, but all our processes are optimized for your comfort and convenience, too. Our booking platform is very easy to use because you can do everything online and you also have the option to have your parcel picked up from your place to save time. Last but not least, we have a very reliable rate calculator that shows you the fee before you even make a shipment so you can easily see what you’re going to pay. Want to try our services? Just visit this page for your booking.

It’s true that there is no better time to be a small or medium-sized business than now. If you want a thriving business, just keep the things mentioned above in mind. And always remember, when it comes to success, convenience is always king.