The holiday season is a bustle of activity. Consumers across industries turn to digital solutions to make their purchases. In fact, while brick and mortar locations see an increase in foot traffic and subsequent sales, the real bread and butter of the holiday season is in the digital boom. According to Salesforce, global digital revenue is expected to grow 15 percent over 2018 figures from Thanksgiving to Christmas. As holiday shoppers rush to purchase items, and B2B organizations strive to solidify lucrative relationships, one question remains. "Are you ready for the rush?"

Let's Talk Mobile Conversion Optimization

Holiday purchases have increasingly switched from desktops to mobile devices. In fact, more than 50 percent of holiday shoppers in 2019 spent over three hours conducting product research and shopping on their mobile devices. The result is that more than 20 percent of all holiday purchases are made from smartphones. With this in mind, if you want to be ready for the holiday rush, then we need to talk mobile conversion optimization.

Your mobile site should already be optimized. However, if you are looking to gain a competitive edge, then you will need to implement the following tips.

• Support interactive images.
• Create a mobile-friendly checkout process.
• Prioritize the search bar.

As the holiday season approaches, keep in mind that 40 percent of online shoppers will turn to a competitor site if they are faced with a poor user experience. Give your customers and prospects what they want by optimizing your mobile site to help them more effectively reach their goals. Whether it is purchasing a product or contacting a member of your team directly, your mobile site needs to be optimized like never before if you want to increase conversions.

User Experience Relies On Exceptional Customer Support

Did you know that help desk tickets typically increase by 42 percent over the holiday season? There is nothing worse than a poor help desk experience. It is the thing of nightmares that plagues organizations with bad press, dissatisfied customers, and lost sales. In fact, a poor help desk experience might be as detrimental as a canceled Thanksgiving flight that results in a 12-hour queue at JFK.

The good news is that the following tips can help you to create a positive user experience, even if your customer(s) are forced to create a help desk ticket.

1. Recognize that 67 percent of customers prefer self-serve channels of support. Accommodate this preference by creating an informative and easy to navigate FAQs section within your Help Center.
2. Prepare your customer support team. The average number of tickets will increase by an estimated 17 percent during the holiday season. Consider outsourcing, hiring temporary agents, or using Answer Bots to maintain high CSAT scores without burning-out your agents.
3. Implement a live chat feature onto your desktop (and if it isn't cumbersome, your mobile) site. Staff the live chat feature with knowledgeable agents who are ready to speed type and answer questions, complaints, and comments in a personalized fashion that promotes a positive user experience.

Dive Into User Data To Increase Personalization Opportunities

An impressive 47 percent of individuals are happy to give organizations their personal information in favor of a personalized experience. During the holidays you can and should use your carefully gathered customer data to increase personalization opportunities. The route of personalization is dynamic content; however before you create these user-specific campaigns, you should carefully analyze customer trends from throughout the year.

During the holidays your company will need to cater to both loyal customers and new prospects. With this in mind, 46 percent of mobile users will leave a site (never to return) if it doesn't load within five seconds. Analyzing customer browsing trends will help you to optimize your content and subsequently capitalize on personalization opportunities.

• Look at locations and devices. -- What devices do your customers use to access your digital content? Where are your customers located? Answering these types of questions will help you to optimize your content and ensure quick loading times.
• Investigate buying patterns. -- Buying patterns provide a wealth of information. They also give you the insights that you need to create cross-selling holiday campaigns. Whether you want to leverage the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and auto-suggest complementary products, or simply retarget customers with display advertisements, the key to successfully cross-selling lies in analyzing buying patterns.
• Optimize images and use browser caching. -- Reduce page load times by optimizing images. You should also enable browser caching so that user's won't have to download static files every time they visit your site form their preferred devices.
• Prioritize page content. -- The most important information on your page should load first if you want to increase conversions. This information might include: CTAs, product details, and important product features.

The moral of the story is simple, if you want to increase personalization through dynamic content, then you need to first analyze your existing user data so that you can create campaigns that target both existing customers and new holiday prospects.

Stay True To Branding And Your Voice

Like the poor help desk experience, holiday marketing messages that don't stay true to your brand's voice are a surefire way to disappoint your customers. With this in mind, an AI-driven CRM can be used to help you stay true to your brand voice as you craft messages, optimize your website, and answer help desk inquiries. Through AI, you can complete on-site content personalization in real-time. You can also deliver clearer communications that respond to the customer's needs, wishes, and challenges. This holiday, give your customers what they want with the help a branding agency that knows how to combine the power of human insights with proven technology solutions that help you maintain authentic connections throughout the busiest time of the year.