Article

Mohammad Farooq
Mohammad Farooq 13 July 2017

The 3 Main Facets of M-Commerce Success for Vendors

The world of m-commerce presents vast opportunities for vendors to expand their customer reach. But in order to do so successfully, customer satisfaction and trust must be central focal points across the organization as a whole.  And improving both is no easy feat.  Ensuring customer-oriented marketing goals created to retain existing customers align with other marketing initiatives designed to attract new customers is paramount to success.

Since the launch of the iPhone in 2007, mobile commerce, or m-commerce, has seen unprecedented growth. Customers, partners, and employees alike need access to information, resources, and services, regardless of where they are located at any given moment. 

The world of m-commerce presents vast opportunities for vendors to expand their customer reach. But in order to do so successfully, customer satisfaction and trust must be central focal points across the organization as a whole.  And improving both is no easy feat.  Ensuring customer-oriented marketing goals created to retain existing customers align with other marketing initiatives designed to attract new customers is paramount to success.

Understanding the True Value of Customer Satisfaction

It’s no secret that satisfaction among existing customers is important for overall success. After all, it’s a lot easier and less costly to retain an existing customer than it is to generate a new one. Here’s an interesting case study on how an entrepreneur converted 10% of its customers by making small incremental changes.

Whenever customers make a transaction with a vendor, they have different reactions toward the transaction, which can impact their overall satisfaction. For example, when performance is lower than expected, there is a low level of satisfaction. And satisfaction is the fundamental performance variable that impacts customer perception.  When both customer satisfaction and perception are low, this is when you’re more likely to lose that customer to a competing vendor. In this sense, everything is linked together. 

Fostering Trust

Equally important to success with customers is trust. To your customer, this means being confident in the goodwill of your product, as well as your company as a whole.

Expectations are the beliefs a consumer develops about the product or service before they even make a purchase.  As a vendor, it’s important that you meet these expectations, since it fosters trust, particularly after the transaction has been made. If you do not meet these expectations, your responsiveness is going to dictate how trustworthy you are viewed in the eyes of your customers. If you are highly responsive, your customers are probably still going to trust you.  But if you aren’t, your product and your company may very well be viewed as untrustworthy, which will ultimately result in lost business. 

So, how can vendors improve satisfaction and foster trust from their customers with m-commerce?

By embracing customization while ensuring that their systems are easy to use (aka that their products are good) and that there is great website quality alongside their mobile technology. Vendors that are able to master all three will enjoy higher success rates and customer retention.

Mastering the Art of Customization

The more a company can devise goods on a mass basis, at least relative to competitors, the greater their competitive advantage.  But alongside this mass production must also be mass customization.  Mass customization is the use of flexible processes and flexible organizational structures to create customized and varied products/services at a standardized price.

There are 3 key components to mass customization, which are as follows:

  • Behavioral - With m-commerce, there are varying aspects of interface design, like task-based cues for the emotional or cognitive state of a consumer, which result in differing behaviors. Different factors, like perceptions of quality, and impact outcomes, will make consumers more likely to commit to a website and actually be purchasing something.
  • Ease of Use - Studies show that even though someone might find an application useful, they may also find the system difficult to use. Perceived ease of use is one of the most important factors for adopting new technologies like m-commerce. If a system is too complex, then it discourages people from using the system again. This is why it is critical to developing your customer-facing interfaces, for e.g., a mobile app, to keep it interactive. Many users expect that m-commerce will be free from physical and mental effort.  If that proves not to be the case, they become disheartened and will likely move on. It ii critical to invest in your tech resources for app development which can deliver value and ease-of-use through your apps for the end user. If your present set of developers aren't up to the mark, then it is important to provide them with adequate training from online training service providers like Simplilearn, Coursera, Lynda, etc. 
  • Website Quality - Mobile business apps that embrace customization present opportunities to expand and enhance the marketplace since these two factors interact to influence the perception of satisfaction that customers have when using m-commerce. It’s important to note here that interactivity heavily influences trust.  In fact, interactivity and customization work hand in hand to influence the perception of satisfaction that customers have with m-commerce.

When it comes to customization, always remember this: customization extends to the mobile interface design, which directly improves mobile usability and as an extension, raises the level of satisfaction.

Tying It All Together

As vendors, in order to cultivate trust among customers and to make sure there is increased satisfaction with them, the behavioral elements of your customers must be taken into consideration. Moreover, ease of use for the system itself and higher website quality are both conducive to overall improvement for satisfaction and trust among your customers. Vendors who can offer a high-quality system - one that is easy to use and requires a little effort of their customers - will enjoy increased success with m-commerce.

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