e-Commerce

Your 24/7 Sales Team

THE BACKBONE OF EVERY SUCCESSFUL HIRE BUSINESS IS ITS CUSTOMER SERVICE.

OVER THE PAST COUPLE DECADES, and especially over the past two years, it’s true to say that you may never have a chance to serve customers if you’re not serving their needs online first. Local and regional hire businesses are competing with hire companies with national and international footprints to try to provide an excellent e-commerce experience. With B2C companies like Amazon making purchases easier than ever, hire companies also find themselves competing against online retail businesses more and more.

So what can be done to keep customers coming back, and how can this be used to build a successful e-commerce process?

Trust and reliability

75% of a company’s credibility is based on their company’s website design, according to web credibility research from Stanford University. And even if you’ve established credibility early on with a customer, it’s critical to maintain that trust throughout the shopping process. 80% of people stop engaging with content that doesn’t display well, and 57% of people won’t recommend a business with a poor mobile website design. A website needs to let customers easily see that you’re a legitimate company and the site should integrate with your software to ensure customers are receiving accurate information.

Educate a customer to improve their experience

Part of building upon the trust includes showing knowledge about the products on offer. Making specs and even instructional videos available online helps hirers make informed decisions and feel more confident moving forward. Face-to-face, a person can see someone hiring an excavator and naturally suggest relevant attachments; similarly, your site should be able to suggest additional items that makes sense to buy or hire. Again, this shows that you understand the project they’re working on and builds confidence.

Wrap up the entire transaction without additional referrals

Whether buying or hiring, customers don’t want to go through several people to figure out how much they’re going to pay, when to pay, where things need to be sent, etc. The whole transaction should be taken care of all at the same time. A seamless online transaction should take reservations and payments all at once. A customer should be able to see product availability, or when it’s in stock, and be able to reserve it and schedule delivery.

Effective after sales

Much like a sales team would be there to follow up with customers and make sure their hire is going well, a site can ask a customer if they need anything else. The site’s backend software should provide a customer portal that can answer any questions a customer might have. For instance: “What equipment do I have out on hire already? How much is my current invoice? How much was my last payment? Can I pay now? Can I call in a maintenance request?” All these items can be handled through a customer portal, which allows your customers to get their questions answered 24/7.

E-commerce solutions should make a customer feel just as good about doing business as they would working directly with branch staff. If customers can find the answers to their questions online, you can free up resources to answer the questions that really require expertise.

Point of Rental has e-commerce solutions built to help hire companies of all sizes compete and thrive in the online marketplace. Our dedication to providing solutions is a big part of why we were named 2022’s HRIA Supplier of the Year in the software/services category. Contact Point of Rental through sales@pointofrental.com to find out how they can help your business increase revenue and cut costs in 2023 and beyond.