4 Ways a PIM Can Enhance the Digital Experience for Customers
Want to stand out in the crowded ecommerce marketplace? Need your digital messaging to make an impact on customers and prospects?
Meeting those goals starts by delivering a better digital experience for customers. You can have wonderful videos, epic product copy, and an excellent paid ad campaign, but if you don’t offer customers an exceptional experience on your website or ecommerce site, then your marketing won’t have that impact.
Today, buyers want to incorporate online and social research into the buying process. They want to look at reviews, research the product, and see how it works and if it will work for them before talking to a salesperson. They could be drawn to your website by that video, then leave frustrated if they don’t easily find the accurate and relevant information and answers they need.
Supporting the buyer in the research process, and helping them as they evaluate their options, is a critical part of the digital experience for customers. This is how a Product Information Management (PIM) system can help.
Product Information Management (PIM) Systems and the Digital Experience
Years ago, digital experience could be defined by the level of automation built into the website. The more tasks you could handle for the customer, the better the digital experience. Today, those standards are merely the starting point for defining a digital experience. Customer perspective has become a more important part of a successful digital experience.
For ecommerce, that means providing accurate, relevant, and timely product information.
How to Provide a Better Digital Experience
We have come to expect that websites are easy to use. In fact, Google uses relevance of the information and ease of use as factors in ranking websites for search. The information that the user finds, and how you have set up the site so they can use the information in the buying process, is how the modern user defines their digital experience.
If you want to rank well in search and provide an exceptional customer experience, or digital experience, on your website, then the user needs to easily find relevant and accurate information. That information needs to be up to date and align with the other data sources on the internet. The information should be linked so that all the most important data points a user may want are in one place, organized and ready for the user.
PIM and a Better Digital Experience
This is where a PIM comes in.
The PIM provides a single source from which the website can pull all the relevant information for the user. Within the PIM, logical relationships can be built for the information, such as a hierarchy of data about a product like its dimensions (height, width, and weight). You can standardize product information, allowing for an easier comparison between two products in your catalog, which helps users find the exact product they need more easily.
Assigning product codes helps you build the relationships between products more easily. You can link products as well, so both the prospect and the channel partner selling the product can see other products they may need, or similar products.
Information like this is how you enhance and improve the digital experience.
Rather than supplying the information to ecommerce sites, or making updates individually, or building the data connections that Google and users are looking for in the ecommerce site, this work is done in the PIM. Then every website that sells the product can pull from the PIM.
Here’s what that means for the customer:
Easy Access to Accurate Information
If a customer or potential customer has a question about a product, they want an answer quickly. They want to have all the relevant information in one easy-to-use place. That’s a goal of the PIM. Rather than managing information separately, the website pulls it all from the PIM and simply displays it on the site for the user. The relationship between the product and information can be assembled in the PIM and reflected on the web or ecommerce site. Easy and simple.
Eliminating Inaccurate Information
Product information changes all the time. Updates are made to the product, new marketing material or messaging is added, or changes are made to a user manual. In addition, as new variations or additions are made to your catalog, then the relationship between products will change. Without any way of updating information across all the sites selling your product, you risk inaccurate product information lingering on the internet. Bad information, or discrepancies about a product, are a source of frustration for customers. With a PIM, you can eliminate inaccurate information, building customer trust for your company and your products.
Streamlined Ordering and Research
Today, we understand the customer buying process well. We know that prospects will do research online. With a little customer research, companies can identify the questions they will likely ask. This information should be reflected in the PIM. Save prospects time and effort by providing the exact answers they want, then provide that information to the channel partners and ecommerce sites that will be selling the product. In addition, you can leverage SEO to ensure the product shows up more easily in search results for users.
Ecommerce and Product Information Management Systems
Setting up an ecommerce site is a complex process, and it can be difficult to imagine how a user will interact with the site, or what actions they take. Trying to optimize the digital experience can be as frustrating for the business as it is for the user on the site.
Adding a PIM to manage information on the site is a simple step that will have an immediate positive impact on the digital experience, eliminating frustration for both the business and the users. It directly addresses a key factor in the digital experience — product information. Users find the information they want faster, shortening the time and effort to make a buying decision.
If you’re ready to explore adding a PIM to your ecommerce site or want to see how it can improve the digital experience for you and your customers, then contact us today for a free consultation.