The world has changed a lot over the last 50 or so years, and the last few pandemic-ridden years have made us feel this change in a number of different ways. Human connection used to be an integral part of our everyday lives. Now, we can accomplish just about anything and everything online, without having to interact with anyone else.
While this is a blessing in many ways, it can also leave us feeling isolated and detached from the world around us. Humans need connection, so how do we blend the ease of the online world with relationship and association?
In this post, Blend Commerce looks at how to incorporate human connection into your eCommerce business, so that your customers can feel connected to your brand. This may just be the future of eCommerce, as more businesses move online, and people get increasingly eager for connection and care.
What is Human Connection?
Human connection is an association that people experience when they feel seen, heard, understood and valued as they are. This connection builds trust between individuals, or in this case, from the customer with your business. It gives them a sense of belonging, allowing them to be themselves.
Why is Human Connection Important?
Human connection is very important in interpersonal relationships for its own reasons. In eCommerce, human connection is important because it allows the customer to connect with your brand and business, feel seen and understood, and return time and time again. This creates a loyal customer, which is the goal of most eCommerce businesses, as customer retention offers better ROI than finding new customers.
How to Create Human Connection in eCommerce
In order to create a sense of human connectedness in your eCommerce business, you should focus on the feelings that it should evoke: seen, heard, valued, understood, and belonging. Here are our top tips to invoke these feelings in your customers:
Create a Strong Brand Identity
Having a strong brand identity distinguishes your brand in the consumer's mind, allowing them to identify with it. A unique and clear brand image allows you to build a relationship with your customers, encouraging trust and loyalty. They can identify with your company values and appearance and will likely feel comfortable choosing you over your competition.
Make Use of Personalisation
Personalisation has become a very important part of digital marketing and eCommerce, as customers don’t want to feel like a number, they want to feel seen.
Therefore, ensuring that you understand your target audience, where individuals are in their customer journey, and what they want from your store will allow you to connect with them through personalisation. Whether you’re personalising your email marketing or your welcome flows, each bit of personalisation you can add to your website will have its benefits. It’s all about the details.
Build an Online Community
With the proliferation of online platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit and so much more, you can now build an online presence to connect with your customers and target audience at large. Using your brand identity, you can create content, interact with your customers, and engage them in a way that makes them feel seen and heard.
Have an Empathetic Customer Care Team
Depending on the size of your company, you will likely have a dedicated customer care employee or team. These people help those with complaints, questions and concerns. While not everyone deals with customer support, those that do really benefit from an empathetic, caring experience.
Make sure that your team connects with the customer, shows that they care about the customer's issue, and helps them solve it efficiently. This way, you will not only get good reviews and feedback from customers, but you will also have created a happy, loyal customer that experiences a human connection.
Need Help Creating a Human Connection?
At Blend Commerce, we understand that not every business is equipped to create these kinds of relationships with customers. That’s where we come in. We can help personalise email marketing, redesign your website to suit your target audience, and much more. Contact us today to find out more.
Published: July 11, 2022
Last updated: November 15, 2023
