E-commerce trends
13 Proven Ways To Make Your Customer Experience Stand Out
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Freya Laskowski
May 22, 2025
When people talk about customer experience, they often focus on flashy moments — unboxing videos, handwritten notes, or surprise discounts. But the truth is, customer experience is built on the boring stuff.
Was the tracking link easy to find? Did support respond quickly? Was the return process smooth, or did it feel like a punishment for changing your mind?
These are the things that define customer experience in commerce. They’re the reason a shopper buys again or never comes back.
In this guide, you’ll find 13 ways to improve customer experience that actually move the needle. Each one is simple enough to implement, but impactful enough to turn customers into regulars.
1. Understand the full customer journey
You can’t improve what you don’t understand. Mapping out the customer journey, from start to finish, helps you uncover where customers get stuck, confused, or drop off.
Most journeys follow five key stages:
- Awareness: How they discover your brand.
- Consideration: The research phase — reviews, product info, pricing.
- Decision: Checkout, payment, and confirmation.
- Retention: Delivery experience and post-purchase follow-ups.
- Advocacy: Referrals, reviews, and loyalty programs.
At each stage, identify common pain points or complaints.
Support tickets are especially useful here. For example, if you're an e-commerce brand and keep getting queries about problems checking out during the purchase journey, that’s not just a support issue; it points to missing information or friction in your customer experience. These kinds of gaps can quietly push potential clients away.
Use insights like these to practice next issue avoidance (NIA): solve the current problem and anticipate what might follow.
For instance, when a customer updates their shipping address, automatically confirm that any upcoming orders will be sent to the right place. It’s a small step that prevents confusion and cuts follow-up questions.
An email marketing software like Brevo can help you do this easily with an email campaign that automates confirmation emails for updates, orders, and any changes made to a customer’s account.
Revisit your journey map often. As your business evolves, so do customer expectations.
2. Turn real-time feedback into improvements
Don’t wait for quarterly reviews to look into customer experience issues. Real-time feedback helps you spot issues early, before they become reputation killers.
Start with simple tools like post-checkout surveys, delivery review emails, or live chat ratings.
If customers consistently rate your delivery experience poorly, don’t just pass the data along. Dig into the why. Was it the speed of the vehicle? Tracking? Damaged packing? Loop in your fulfilment partner or operations team as soon as a pattern emerges, and make sure to focus on customer data privacy throughout this process.
Customers are almost two and a half times more likely to stay loyal when brands solve problems quickly. But that door swings both ways, with 86% saying they’d go elsewhere after just two bad experiences.
Build internal processes that turn daily feedback into weekly action. It’s the difference between “we’re listening” and actually fixing what matters.
3. Improve post-purchase customer experience in commerce
Post-purchase is when a lot of brands drop the ball, and customers notice. Over 80% of consumers think the post-purchase experience could be improved, but only 18% of retail leaders agree. That’s a clear gap, and a major opportunity to improve.
This means improving everything after the “thank you” page. Think delivery speed, tracking updates, returns, and follow-up communications.
79% of consumers say they may not buy from a brand after a bad post-purchase experience. Broken tracking links, clunky returns process, or a simple lack of updates can kill repeat business.
Focus on details that make customers go out of their way to shop with you, from delivery update notifications to responsive support when something goes wrong.
4. Personalise every interaction
Personalisation involves tailoring the experience based on what you know about the customer, not just using their name in an email. You’re already collecting customer data, like past behaviour, purchase history, and queries, all of which can be used to build customer profiles or even standard preferences.
Customers value and expect personalisation. Three out of four now expect it by default, and 60% believe businesses should use the data they collect to improve the experience.
When done right, personalisation makes people feel understood, not targeted. It’s a small shift that increases engagement, builds client relationships, and encourages repeat purchases.
5. Make every step of the purchase easy
Eight out of ten digital carts are abandoned, and the most common reasons are entirely preventable: unexpected costs, slow website loading speeds, forced account creation, or clunky checkouts with multiple pages.
Delivery plays a huge role, too. In 2024, expensive fees were the number one reason people abandoned their carts, followed closely by slow delivery times.
You need to audit every step and set some benchmarks. These will depend on your industry and the types of products or services you sell. But ask some basic questions:
- Can customers check out in under a minute?
- Are shipping costs clearly displayed up front?
- Do you force new customers to create an account before buying?
The fix is normally simplification. Remove unnecessary clicks, offer guest checkout, and show total costs early.
Automate repetitive tasks like shipping updates or return requests, but keep real humans where nuance matters. A clean, fast experience leads to more conversions, fewer support tickets, and better retention.
6. Lean into omnichannel support
While many brands have to, customers don’t think in terms of channels; they just want help. Whether you receive a message on Instagram, reply to an email, or jump into a live chat, the experience should feel connected.
If one agent can’t see what another has already handled, they have to ask customers to reexplain their issues, leading to delays and total frustration. This disconnect breaks the flow of the customer experience commerce, where consistency across every channel is key to building trust.
Omnichannel support connects your systems so customer conversations flow between platforms without losing context. If someone starts with a product question in chat and follows up via email, your team should pick up right where things left off. That typically means using a support platform that pulls all interactions into a shared dashboard, so agents always have the whole picture at all times.
Software companies often provide the best support via video. For example, Swarm focuses on providing a video-centric community to creators, which includes asynchronous video support for members when they have questions.
The platform allows creators to send text messages or video explanations, all in the same chat, so everything is in one place. This allows companies flexibility when it comes to the kind of media they want to use to send over a response to a query received, while also keeping everything under the same roof.
You don't need to be everywhere, you just need consistency wherever you’re dealing with customers. Audit your current support stack and tweak it for faster resolutions, better feedback, and a more cohesive customer experience.
7. Begin adopting AI automation
AI isn’t some future investment. It’s already embedded in daily operations for most companies. In fact, 78% of businesses are using AI today, and the most common applications are customer experience-related: automated support, CRM tools, and personalised recommendations.
That doesn’t mean replacing your team. Rather, you need to automate the slow, repetitive tasks that bog them down, like order status checks, return requests, or shipping FAQs.
To get started, identify your most common support requests. Then explore AI tools to improve customer experience commerce that are built into platforms like Gorgias, Intercom, or Zendesk.
Today, AI is valuable to every type of business, even those you might not think of. For example, law firms can use basic automation, like FAQ bots or workflow triggers, to answer basic questions or company information, taking real pressure off the team.
8. Make Returns So Simple They Build Trust
Returns are a key part of the post-purchase experience, and one of the most overlooked. If the process is confusing, time-consuming, or expensive, it creates friction that can easily turn a satisfied customer into a one-time buyer.
The opposite is also true: a seamless return or exchange builds trust, reduces pre-purchase hesitation, and increases the chances of repeat business.
Here’s how to make that happen:
- Display your return policy before checkout to reduce hesitation.
- Give customers flexible return options like store credit, fast exchanges, or extended windows.
- Automate return labels and status updates to eliminate manual requests and reduce support load.
- Track return reasons and address repeat issues in your product or fulfilment process.
A fast, flexible return process reduces churn, cuts support tickets, and gives customers a reason to buy again.
9. Track the right metrics and listen to your team
Metrics like NPS (Net Promoter Score) and CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) help you spot trends, flag weaknesses, and measure the impact of customer experience changes over time.
But numbers only tell part of the story. Your support and fulfilment teams often see what’s broken before the data ever catches up. They hear the frustration in real time, about shipping delays, confusing policies, or product issues that don’t show up in dashboards.
Set up regular feedback loops with the people on the frontlines, schedule monthly check-ins, and use a simple form to log recurring complaints. These inputs often uncover friction points you’d never find in a spreadsheet.
10. Aim for faster fulfilment and delivery
Fast delivery is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s the benchmark. Global e-commerce platforms like Amazon have trained customers to expect same-day or next-day shipping, and anything slower feels like a letdown.
If your fulfilment speed lags, it drags the entire customer experience down with it, no matter how good the product is. Delays damage your brand, increase support volume, and dampen your chances of repeat business.
Audit your current logistics setup: Where are orders getting stuck? Can you localise inventory? Can your carriers consistently meet your delivery promises?
Small wins make a big difference:
- Reduce handoff delays between order and fulfilment.
- Use predictive analytics to route inventory closer to high-demand areas.
- Offer real-time delivery tracking and proactive delay updates.
Speed is a differentiator. Customers notice it and they reward it with loyalty. If you can’t consistently meet demand in-house, partner with a logistics provider who can.
11. Communicate early, clearly, and often
Unfortunately, most customers don’t assume that no news is good news. Silence or vague updates on deliveries or backorders create frustration.
Transparent communication sets expectations from the start. Clearly communicate shipping timeframes, pricing details, return policies, and any delays or issues that may affect their order as soon as possible.
What does a clear communication strategy look like?
- It confirms every major milestone, so customers know their order is placed, shipped, and delivered.
- It flags delays before customers have to ask, with clear timelines and what happens next.
- It makes it easy to get help by keeping contact options visible and accessible.
- It uses simple, human language that matches your brand, not legal disclaimers or vague updates.
Strong communication reduces confusion, prevents unnecessary support tickets, and reassures customers that you’re in control, even when there's a delay.
12. Recognise and reward loyalty
Loyal customers are your most valuable audience, and they should feel like it. When you recognise repeat buyers with thoughtful perks or personalised gestures, you give them a reason to keep coming back.
That doesn’t have to be discounts. Small, thoughtful gestures go a long way: early access to new products, personalised thank-you emails, or exclusive shipping perks for top customers.
You can formalise this with a loyalty program that rewards points for purchases, referrals, or social engagement. Just make sure it’s easy to join, easy to understand, and genuinely valuable to the customer.
Recognition makes customers feel like more than a transaction.
13. Keep evolving with your customers
Your best innovations often come from the people using your product, rather than those in a boardroom. When you stay in tune with your customers, you’ll find smart ways to improve key elements of your business.
That could mean adding a new digital wallet payment option after support requests pile up, redesigning a confusing reports page, or testing a fresh post-purchase flow based on feedback. Small changes like these show you’re paying attention and, most importantly, continually improve customer experience.
Here are a few simple ways to spot opportunities:
- Ask repeat customers what slowed them down in their last experience.
- Track service tickets for recurring issues or fixable confusion.
- Test minor changes with loyal users before scaling.
- Stay plugged into reviews (yours and your competitors’).
Innovation isn’t always new and improved technology. It’s about making improvements that remove friction, answer real customer needs, and give people more reasons to stick with your brand.
Customer experience is never really finished — it’s something you refine as your customers, products, and expectations evolve. The best strategies are the ones you can sustain and improve as your business grows.
Most of these changes are practical, not overwhelming, and apply whether you're a growing startup or an established brand.
Choose a few, put them into practice, and keep listening. The impact adds up quickly.
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