Check your site speed
With an influx of online shoppers, you want your site to perform its best. If images or other elements on your website are too big or load slowly, that can impact your customer’s experience. Plus, slow site speeds can hurt your SEO results. You should test your site performance both on desktop and mobile, since almost half of consumers use their mobile devices to shop all the time. You can test your site speed using a tool from Google. Make sure to run a few tests to get a good average. Then look for areas to improve.
Crash-proof your site
Popular retail holidays, like Black Friday, can mean a huge influx of customers, which can slow your website down and even cause it to crash. Having your website go down during a big sale can really hurt your profits. A content delivery network (CDN) can help you deliver your website to more visitors because the data transfer takes place in the cloud.
Run updates and tests
After you’ve implemented changes to fix your site speed and to prevent site crashes, it’s a good idea to run any necessary updates on your content management system. Updates address any bugs or security issues that could hurt your customer’s experience. Be sure to test your site as well, including running through the checkout systems and any of your automated emails so things run seamlessly. You should also boost your website’s security to make sure it is safe for your customers to use.
Get your customer service team ready
Your customer service team will likely be under a lot of stress with added holiday traffic, returns, and other customer concerns. Think about what you can do to make their jobs easier, like writing up an FAQ document to address customer questions or setting up a chat bot. Be clear about what customers can expect in terms of shipping times and returns to reduce customer complaints.
Don’t miss out on the important holiday retail season! Take steps now to make sure the online shopping experience is seamless for your customers to save time and heartache during the major retail holidays.
How else are you preparing for the holiday retail season? Share with us @CenturyLink!
