Nowadays, neither a small business nor a world-renowned enterprise can afford a poor customer experience. Everybody bears in mind that the competition between brands is only soaring, and people have an increasing number of options to choose from. If a website or an online store is one of the core sales drivers for a company, thus, it’s vital to invest in evolving it in line with the latest web development tendencies.
Let’s discuss 5 of the most powerful technologies, instruments, and approaches that definitely help with boosting key metrics and eventually have a favorable effect on the revenue.
1. Rebuilding Websites as PWAs (Progressive Web Apps)
A PWA is a website that looks and feels like a native mobile app. And this is, probably, the hottest trend that captured the minds of businessmen and developers all over the globe. For an eCommerce business, opting for Magento web development services and creating PWAs can mean a boost in site performance and increased conversions.
It’s just worth mentioning the brands which have already “switched” their regular websites into PWAs to understand the significance and even the necessity of such a step. Here are some of the names: Lancôme and BMW, Forbes and The New York Times, Twitter and Tinder, Starbucks and Uber, Pinterest and Spotify, AliExpress and Trivago.
PWAs are extremely convenient for users due to the following features:
- Fast loading speed;
- Wonderful UX (a PWA resembles a native mobile app);
- Compatibility with any type of device and browser;
- Ability to use a site further offline or with unstable internet connection;
- Mandatory HTTPS to ensure the safety of transactions
- No need to download an app that saves storage space;
- Option to add an icon to the home screen.
PWAs are beneficial for companies as they provide several important opportunities:
- engaging more people and extend mobile sessions;
- re-engaging users by sending push-notifications;
- to lower the bounce rate and cart abandonment rate, to ameliorate conversion rate;
- reducing expenditures on developing a modern solution (PWAs are far cheaper in comparison with native apps).
Take a look at the screenshots from the Starbucks PWA and see how much it looks like a full-fledged native app.
Screenshot taken on the official Starbucks website
2. Automated Customer Support Via AI-powered Chatbots
AI-based chatbots have been getting more popular, and the most prominent tech giants such as Microsoft and Facebook contribute a lot to developing the technology. A chatbot uses AI, machine learning, and NLP (natural language processing) to handle a certain circle of tasks regarding customer service. These include:
- Instant response and round-the-clock availability;
- Addressing frequently asked questions, prompting helpful tips, processing orders, connecting with a live agent if needed, etc;
- Working separately from human assistants;
- Collecting customers’ data to ensure a personalized approach with relevant offers.
A chatbot analyzes information related to using a website: previous visits and orders, search history, favorite goods, and more. Plus, chatbots save your employees’ time and your money. This is a wise optimization worth trying, especially if it comes to a global business working with customers located in various time zones.
Here’s an example of such a chatbot assistant that’s present on the official Victoria’s Secret website:
Screenshot taken on the official Victoria’s Secret website
3. Voice Search Optimization
Image credit: Pixabay
There are two interrelated tendencies: people have been increasing the internet search by voice and using smart speakers more frequently. That’s why audio recognition is now a huge focus in web development.
Thus, considering some improvements in this field really matters. We’d like to suggest two ideas:
- To support speech recognition on the website in order to deliver a great user experience;
- To optimize the content on your website in appliance with the latest SEO advice in terms of voice search. Since people tend to build their voice requests as questions, then more natural colloquial phrases, questions, and precise answers will amplify the chances for a particular website to be listed on the top of Alexa or Siri search results.
4. Making SPAs (Single-Page Applications)
This is a type of web app that works within a browser and has superb speed because it doesn’t require reloading the whole page or loading a new one from the server while using the app. Amongst the best examples of SPA are Gmail, Google Drive, Google Maps, and Facebook.
Image credit: Unsplash
Although the main advantage of a SPA is its pleasantly rapid performance (which is so essential!) it brings some more benefits for both users and business owners:
- Comfortable use on phones due to responsive design, minimalistic appearance, and simple navigation;
- Excellent level of consumer’s data protection;
- Fairly cheap and plain development.
Being extremely fast and convenient, SPAs showcase lowering bounce rates and improving other crucial indicators.
5. Using Cloud Computing
Image credit: Pixabay
This sphere has been continuing to grow at an impressive rate in terms of profitability and versatility. Companies of all sizes are turning to cloud services for a great range of needs. And the demand is getting only higher as immensely many people need to work remotely. Among other things, cloud technologies allow:
- optimizing plenty of IT-related costs;
- attaining flexible and scalable (X)aaS solutions;
- a guarantee of secure access to data and applications from a big number of devices and locations.
Final Word
In conclusion, leveraging fresh intelligent approaches consequently brings outstanding outcomes. The primary advice is to adopt the experience of the best brands on the market. In addition, they evolve websites on a regular basis so that accidental passers-by turn into beloved customers.