You believe you have taken all the rights steps to get your online site up and running, including sorting out your business banking options for taking payments, and arranging a suitable hosting option, but your progress might stall if your sales conversion rate stalls.
These so-called bottlenecks are occurring for a reason and if you can identify what the problems are you can take steps to put things right and get online sales flowing properly.
Here is a look at some of the typical issues that can cause a bottleneck in online sales.
Are you targeting the right customer?
It might be a fundamental question but if your sales efforts are targeting the wrong customer profile it will lead to wasted time and resources and a poor sales ratio.
A good way of tackling this issue would be to work on creating a typical buyer persona where you identify what your average customer looks for and how they behave on your site.
Once you know what your typical customer looks like you can search for more of the same and reduce the prospect of a bottleneck.
Efficient communication
It is critical that you nurture and value every lead generated so that you can improve your chances of converting that interest into a sale.
A lot of savvy companies deploy marketing automation tools into their system so that customers are never kept waiting and always get a prompt response, and if you improve efficiency when communicating with customers it should help improve sales conversion rates.
Look at the whole sales process
It pays to focus on the whole sales process rather than just the beginning of the transaction as bottlenecks occur at various points, and are equally damaging.
Any delays in processing the order or a lack of customer communication can lead to cancelled orders and won’t help nurture a relationship that could lead to further sales.
Approval delays
Once a customer has made their selection and wants to add them to the cart and proceed to checkout there needs to be minimal time spent achieving that aim.
If you can minimize the time spent between selecting an item and completing the checkout process this should help to reduce the prospect of a bottleneck scenario in this respect.
After they have bought
It is also highly relevant to discuss that tailbacks are an issue when it comes to following up after a sale has been completed.
You might think that this is not a bottleneck because a sale has been completed but this point in the sales process represents a golden opportunity to create a feeling of loyalty to your brand, which means they are more likely to return again.
A simple system of thanking someone for their business via an automated message could make all the difference.
Sales bottlenecks are always frustrating, but if you can work on identifying why they are happening in the first place, you have the chance to take action and see your business prosper as a result.
