3 Tips on How to Instantly Improve Your Commerce User Experience.

Here’s the truth. Online and mobile commerce systems are not perfect and have a long way to go, so there will be days when customers don’t have a great experience and convenience isn’t the most important thing. But that doesn’t mean you have to wait until you’ve achieved commerce perfection before you can start giving the customer what they want.

Imagine you give your customer a piggy bank. Inside the piggy bank, there’s not a single coin. What’s put in there is far more valuable; it’s trust. In the world of m/e-commerce, tap-to-pay and online transactions, you have to understand how to deposit as much trust as you can for those rainy days (those pissed-off-customer moments). How do you do that?

Here are three user experience tips that you can do to help build trust over time – whether for e-commerce and payments or for overall experiences.

1. Clear communication.

“Are you sure you want to delete all 120,540 photos from your library?” Oh shoot. No. Whew. Could you imagine if you lost all your photos with one tap? Or instead of a confirmation page for a purchase, you were charged immediately only to realize later it’s shipping to your old apartment? Yikes. (Amazon 1-click buy button for a later day.) It sounds innate, but don’t forget to communicate with your customers. Tell them clearly what’s about to take place and give them a chance to back out if they need to.

2. Meaningful design.

Your design actually has ROI. A study by Norman Nielsen Group finds that aesthetics do build trust and confidence and lower the impact of those rainy-day moments. Priceline.com does a wonderful job at balancing utility with visual appeal. It places emphasis on visual hierarchy, adds some fun design elements (such as confetti, so you know it’s a good time), but it never trades off the fact that you, their customer, are looking for great deals. In fact, as part of that great experience, they’re reminding you of how much you are potentially saving with the current trip choices you have made. Put some effort into the overall user experience and visual design; it goes a long way to build confidence and, ultimately, trust.

3. Get to know and understand your customer.

Target is famous for knowing their customer intimately. Infamously, in 2012, they mailed a teenage girl an ad for maternity items. The teen’s dad was so outraged that he called to probably rip off someone’s head, but later recanted because she actually was pregnant. This story illustrates how much Target gets to know their customers’ buying habits, to the tune of predicting what they might need. The more a customer feels as though you get them and understand who they are, the more trust will be deposited into that bank.