How to Elevate Sales and Customer Experience in Beauty Salon’s New Web Store
Consumers operate independently in the world of online shopping. Placing emphasis upon a web store’s flow and navigation are important factors in creating a good online customer experience.
Digitalisation has changed the way how we consume. Retailers have moved from brick-and-mortar stores to online platforms. The competition is greater than ever and there is a worldwide selection of goods only a few clicks away. For online retailers, emphasis towards a positive customer experience creates a strong competitive advantage.
Service Design Master’s degree student Suvi Oasmaa explored in her thesis a beauty salon’s newly established web store’s flow to elevate the sales and customer experience. The research was done with service design principles of gathering qualitative data from the current clientele with interviews and observations as well as validating the findings through a quantitative questionnaire for target group audience. Benchmarking was utilised to find usable ideas for the final suggestions. The current web store flow was visualised as a customer journey to identify the development areas which effects on the customer experience.
Customer orientation is a significant part of companies’ strategy to develop competitive operations, which is why the methods and tools of service design were particularly important in the study.
According to the research the most crucial factors on online shopping experience where navigation and clarity of the site as well as informative product descriptions. Social proof, such as social media posts, customer reviews and recommendations were seen as influential factors when making a purchase decision. Discounts and free deliveries were the most valued in customer loyalty programs which help the customers to come back to make re-purchases.
The beauty salon’s web store’s flow was at a good level, but it could have been developed by increasing the engagement, social aspects, and cross-selling opportunities. The commissioner was provided suggestions to improve the web store as well as ideas for collecting customer feedback and creating a customer loyalty program. The implemented suggestions can be measured with set KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to see their impact.
Collecting customer feedback and creating a customer loyalty program were the suggestions given to the commissioner for further business development.
Customer experience is a continuous process to keep it on a good level. In online context the customer is navigating independently so everything needs to be as smooth and convenient as possible. By listening and asking feedback from the customers, the companies can keep up with the consumers changing expectations and provide great experiences also in the future.
Oasmaa, S. 2024. Elevating Sales and Customer Experience in a Beauty Salon’s New Web Store. Master’s Thesis. Turku University of Applied Sciences.
Photo by Karolina Kaboompics / Pexels.