Written by Jacky Goh

Each e-commerce rewards program is rooted in customer satisfaction, conversion, and retention. In today’s hyper-digital world, every business operating online should not only have some type of rewards platform in place for its users to foster stronger brand presence and loyalty, but one that works to continuously improve strengthening that loyalty through a valuable and personalized experience for each individual user (UX). While creating an inherently user-friendly e-commerce rewards platform is easier said than done, businesses that do not optimize their platform’s functionality to focus on improving its UX can often do little as they watch their numbers — both in user traffic and revenues — slowly decline.

As anyone operating or managing an e-commerce business knows, the more friendly and optimized their platform is towards UX, the more likely it is to improve both its users’ conversion rates and loyalty, making the focus of improving its UX a crucial aspect of any e-commerce business with a rewards platform in place. Through optimizing virtually every aspect of your rewards platform, users will be able to navigate it more easily, make purchases more seamlessly, as well as earn and transfer their rewards in a more ordered and consistent manner.

Customer Support is integral to UX

The way that each business (and e-commerce businesses in particular) interact with their customers and users is perhaps the most vital factor to consider when looking to bolster their growth, be it through increased user traffic or profits. This means that the ways in which your users interact with your platform serve as a crucial foundation when considering methods to improve its UX overall.

One of the most assured methods of improving a platform’s UX is through implementing a strong and dedicated customer support team to assist users throughout their journey in using your rewards platform. A team such as this will grant your business the opportunity to better communicate with users on its platform, allowing you to more firmly understand the unique experience of each user as they interact with it and form a deeper appreciation for why they choose to do so.

Likewise, by better understanding the individual journey of users on your platform through a dedicated customer support team for your rewards platform, you can gain knowledge of any issues that may affect your users or their UX while on your platform. For example, let’s say that your platform encounters an issue preventing its users from transferring (and subsequently, using) their rewards from purchases they make to their digital wallets. In this case or similar ones, a customer support team can identify and work to solve this issue more rapidly, mitigating factors that may harm the platform’s UX while simultaneously improving it through responding to users’ inquiries on the issue and resolving their problems more quickly. 

A strong customer support team with the proper training and tools at their disposal is a huge advantage when looking to not only improve your reward platform’s UX, but also to foster additional loyalty from your users.

Your platform needs to be optimized for mobile users

Fully optimizing your platform for UX includes one commonly-overlooked factor: optimization for use with mobile devices.

Over the past eight years, the percentage of users performing searches for websites, businesses, and platforms through their mobile devices has increased from some 27% in 2013 to just over 60% in 2021. For e-commerce rewards platforms specifically, this exponential growth tells us that those platforms must be designed and optimized for users who primarily rely on their mobile devices to search for, purchase, and transfer their rewards.

Two ways that your platform can do this with UX improvements in mind include:

• Bringing on a designer, especially one experienced in mobile UX web design and/or a search engine optimization (SEO) specialist to assist your rewards platform boost its search ranking to place higher in search results made from mobile devices
• Design and launch a mobile-friendly application for your rewards platform

An app designed with UX in mind poses additional benefits, as well. It can allow your platform’s users to more easily transfer rewards to and from their digital wallets, akin to a web browser extension that lets users receive notifications of additional rewards opportunities in a more timely manner.

Customize the UX by tailoring it to each user’s journey

As the name suggests, UX is founded upon a need to improve the unique experience of each individual user on your rewards platform. When the time inevitably comes to improve upon your platform’s UX, having a firm grasp of the needs and wants of your users across their demographics will allow you to better understand what initially brings them to your platform and what you can do to retain a larger portion of them.

Personalized experiences and customized user journeys are a necessary offering for any business looking to grow and thrive in today’s digital landscape. Your platform’s users know this, too, and will expect it from your platform. Whereas some users might expect their rewards to be available for transfer to their digital wallets immediately following a purchase they make on your platform, others might desire to build up as many rewards as possible prior to initiating a transfer. Additionally, consider implementing a feature for your platform granting its users the ability to customize the rewards they receive, as well as when and how in order to create a platform tailored to fit the unique experience of each of its users.

However you ultimately decide to customize your rewards platform, remember that remaining focused on improving its UX is both the foundation and goal.