How to Utilize Promotional Events for a Better Customer Experience

Black Friday is just around the corner, and bargain hunters cannot wait to get started. However, customers are not the only ones who benefit from the rapid increase in sales during these promotional events; retail companies do too.

Black Friday and other promotional periods, such as Cyber Week, also present retailers with major challenges every year. These promotional periods yield enormous peaks in traffic, orders, and transactions, which can put a huge strain on retail companies’ systems. Downtimes or slow loading times can negatively impact the user experience and, therefore also, sales. In this blog article, we’d like to show you how to accommodate your customers’ bargain-hunting endeavors and thereby benefit in the long run from the record sales your sales promotions bring in. 

Tip Number 1:

Get your online store ready for Black Friday. Revamp your website and make sure it loads quickly and works well. Your inventory should also always be up to date during the ordering process – because nothing is more frustrating for your customers than a slow website or finding out an item is no longer available when they proceed to the checkout. An API suite can help with this. With the help of high-performance APIs, modern online retailers can easily manage their inventory data and checkout processes in the backend. This ensures that all orders – regardless of channel or device – are centrally managed and displayed in real-time. By separating the backend from the front end, you can inform your customers about whether the product they want is in stock at any time in the store’s front end and even offer omnichannel solutions, such as click and collect and click and reserve.

Tip Number 2:

Adjust your sales strategy and prepare for unforeseen incidents. If something in your online store doesn’t function despite your previous efforts to rework it, be transparent and inform your customers about it. Frontend pop-up notifications about fixing problems and information about when your customers can resume shopping as normal builds trust with them. It is also important to keep in mind that the customer may change their mind about whether they actually want the product, even after having purchased it. If there are any delays in delivery, do not be afraid to inform the customer as soon as you can. With the right APIs, you can flexibly implement such information in the store’s front end at various touchpoints and update it at short notice while your backend team works at full speed to solve the problem.

Tip Number 3:

Provide attractive offers. You aren’t the only one who takes a particular interest in Black Friday because of the increase in sales figures it provides. Therefore, you should come up with appealing offers to make your sales promotions stand out from your competitors. Consumers are always looking for the best deals and benefits – if your offers are not attractive enough, they would rather shop elsewhere. So think about the following question before you get started: Which promotions fit your range of products and your industry? You also need to make sure that your prices are always calculated correctly. Customers shouldn’t have to ask themselves the following questions when they shop with you: 

• Was the price calculated correctly?
• Which discount applies to which item?
• How much money will I get back if I want to return one of the items?

An API suite can provide you with microservices in the backend that you can use to easily combine different promotions, such as “three for the price of two” or mix-and-match offers, and always charge them correctly. This also helps you avoid misunderstandings during the refund process if customers want to return what they ordered online at your physical store.

Tip Number 4:

Ensure your customer service is the best it can be, both online and in your physical stores. Provide your employees with practical means to manage orders: With a single source of truth that bundles information about items, orders, delivery locations, customer data, prices, and promotions in one central location, you can provide your customers with the best possible advice and always keep an eye on your inventory, even during promotional events. You can take a look at how your employees can easily coordinate and handle in-store processes here. 

Tip Number 5:

Learn from Black Friday! Performance analyses and reports help you to identify weak points after Black Friday and determine where there is potential for improvement for the next sales promotions. And what about the order delivery times? Use a single source of truth that always alerts you about anomalies in the order and delivery process and proactively prevent delivery delays on the next day of the promotion. Doing so means you can provide your customers with a unique, ideal customer experience on Black Friday again next year.