Bridging the Customer Web Experience Gap

Internet sales are being credited with providing some measure of relief for lagging sales at the country’s top retailers. Cyber Monday should be proof that your web presence and its usability are critical to the overall cross-channel customer experience. The challenge for brand marketers and retailers becomes how to turn the focus and attention of the company web site back to marketing, since the evolution of many e-tailing sites began with IT departments and not brand marketers.

According to CMS Wire, the pattern that many have followed has resulted in a web presence that does not measure up with today’s consumers, “They not usable enough. They are not accessible enough. And they are not persuasive enough. There are also too many bits and pieces stapled together to create the feedback loops.”

The article quotes consultants who say the problem lies in a growing gap between those who see the need for a heightened customer experience and the technical realities that such an approach requires. Improving the customer experience on the web is said to be at that top of many organizations’ Christmas lists. Because of the size of this gap, there is really no one solution that can provide all the elements of rich media, social media and analytics. The solution may be your ability to convince your organization to take steps and then to organize the movement yourself.