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  • 6 Steps to Reduce Your Bounce Rate [+ Platform-Specific Tips]

    Your website’s bounce rate is a metric that indicates the percentage of people who land on one of your web pages and then leave without clicking anywhere else on your website – in other words, single-page visitors.
    How sticky is your website? If visitors bounce, it suggests they either didn’t find what they were looking for, or the page wasn’t user-friendly. A high bounce rate also means visitors aren’t looking for more content on your site, clicking on your calls-to-action, or converting into contacts.

    For inbound marketers whose primary goal is to attract and convert website visitors into highly qualified leads for their sales teams, it’s scary stuff. So, let’s get into how to decrease your bounce rates.

    Improving Your Bounce Rate Infographic
    Fortunately, QuickSprout has created an awesome infographic that explains why bounce rate is so important, highlights benchmark industry averages for bounce rate, and identifies a variety of changes you can make to help reduce your website’s bounce rate. Check it out!
    And if you want help converting visitors who are about to bounce from your site, try using HubSpot’s free lead capture tool Lead Flows to create a call-to-action with a relevant offer triggered by exit intent.

    Bounce Rate Benchmarks
    Having a benchmark is so valuable when trying to understand where you stand against competitors in your industry. 
    Find below some 2021 key statistics on bounce rates.   

    1. Set realistic expectations.
    When it comes to your bounce rate, it’s important to set the right expectations. As mentioned in the infographic, look at your historical data as a baseline for how your website has performed in the past.
    Then, compare it to the average for your industry and platform.
    Let’s say your company is a B2B brand with an average bounce rate of 56%. As seen in the previous section, the average bounce rate across industries is 47%, so you might say yours is really high.
    However, the data also shows that bounce rates are much higher for B2B industries, at 75%. So, at 56%, your company is actually doing quite well. While this doesn’t mean you should stop your efforts at reducing the bounce rate, it’s important to know how you stack up against benchmarks.
    In this case, where you’re only in competition with yourself, it’s time to rely on historical data to guide your strategy.
    2. Attract the right visitors.
    Picture yourself in a grocery store. You’re looking for a particular item and you go down an aisle. You look around and you can’t find it. So, what do you do? Leave the aisle and ask for help, or just try the next one.
    Think of your website as an aisle at the store. If your content doesn’t match the visitors you’re attracting, they’ll quickly leave.
    So, how do you make sure you’re attracting the right visitors?

    Create multiple landing pages with unique content and keywords for your different buyer personas.
    Maintain top rankings for branded terms.
    Write attractive, useful meta descriptions for search engine users.
    Improve targeting of online advertising campaigns.

    3. Prioritize the user experience.
    In this day and age, no one has the patience to navigate through a difficult website. You only have a few seconds to make a good impression and present a website that users enjoy being on.
    To do so, follow these steps:

    Make your text readable through sensible organization and the use of larger fonts, bulleted lists, white space, good color contrast, and large headlines.
    Use well-organized, responsive layouts that allow for quick and easy navigation on all platforms and browsers.
    Don’t let ads distract from your content: Place static ads to sides, and avoid pop-ups and self-loading multimedia ads.

    4. Speed up your page load time.
    Page speed is one of the main reasons website visitors leave a website. In fact, Google reported in 2017 that when a page load time goes up to 10 seconds, the bounce rate on mobile goes up 123%.
    Think about it: When was the last time you waited over a minute for a page to load? Most users’ first instinct is to exit and find another website to meet their needs.
    Several factors can contribute to a slow website:

    Image size

    Self-loading multimedia content.
    Site server

    The ideal page load time is two seconds or less. Make sure you test your page speed regularly to ensure it falls within that timeframe.
    5. Produce high-quality content.
    Content can make or break your website visitor’s experience.
    Your content should be:

    Engaging – Does your content make your visitors want to keep reading?

    Clear – Is your content easy to understand and digest?

    Relevant – Does it answer the question your website visitors are asking? Or is it clickbait (a big no-no)?

    If you’re not sure how to answer these questions, have an objective third-party review your content. You should also consider hiring a copywriter who is an expert at producing high-quality content.
    6. Monitor, test, and optimize.
    Every change you make to your website can have an impact on your bounce rate. From the placement of an ad to the content on the page.
    With this in mind, you must monitor your website closely to assess traffic changes. If you notice a rise in your bounce rate and a drop in visitors, run A/B tests to determine what page elements could be affecting your traffic.
    Once you identify the issue(s), optimize your page.
    When it comes to bounce rate, there’s always room for improvement. Use optimization tools (more on that in the next section) to identify opportunities to lower your bounce.
    Want to start optimizing? Use this checklist to maximize your website’s performance.
    How to Decrease your Bounce Rate on Shopify
    When you run an ecommerce business, monitoring your bounce rate is a priority, as an increase can drastically impact revenue.
    To first thing you can do to decrease your bounce rate on your Shopify website is to make sure your search campaign is aligned with your landing page. This means ensuring the keywords you’re targeting align with what you’re offering on your landing page.
    In addition, your landing page should be optimized for conversion by following best practices (e.g. clear CTA, no navigation bar).
    The next step is to add credibility to your page. You can do so by displaying customer reviews and testimonials as social proof. You can also add trust badges on your website to indicate you’re a reputable company.
    To further improve your page’s performance, add a live chat feature to assist website visitors as they shop. You may learn valuable insights from these interactions that help you optimize your page.
    Lastly, invest in tools like Optimizely, Hotjar, Unbounce, and Crazy Egg to better understand your visitors’ behavior on your site and identify areas for improvement.
    How to Decrease Bounce Rate of Your Blog
    Reducing your blog’s bounce rate is all about following tried-and-true formulas:

    Have a clear structure and page hierarchy – Using headers and subheaders help visitors (and search engines) understand what information is on the page and how it is organized.

    Use high-quality media – Photos, gifs, illustrations, and videos are great for breaking up long sections of text as well as diversifying your information delivery method.

    Make your content error-free – When users see a page riddled with mistakes, it can make them question the brand’s credibility and lead them to exit out of the page.

    Include a clear call-to-action – Having a clear next step for your website visitor will help guide them in the direction you want them to go. Want them to read other articles? Hyperlink them in your post. Want them to download an offer? Include the CTA in the post.

    How to Decrease Email Bounce Rates
    Email bounce rates are defined differently than bounce rates on other channels.
    An email bounce rate refers to the number of emails that are not delivered to a subscriber list. There are two types of bounce rates: hard and soft. The former refers to a permanent reason why the email cannot deliver while the latter refers to a temporary issue.
    For instance, say you have 100 email subscribers. You send an email blast and 98% of them receive your email. Your email bounce rate, in this case, would be 2%.
    The average bounce rate is 0.7%, according to Campaign Monitor. However, this number can vary slightly by provider.
    A bounce rate ranging between 0 and 2% is normal. Anything beyond that and you’ll want to look deeper.
    Here are some ways to reduce your email bounce rate:

    Use double opt-ins – Sending a confirmation email to a recipient with a CTA to subscribe will ensure the submitted email is correct and working properly.

    Clean out your subscriber list regularly – Removing inactive subscribers is another way to verify that your email addresses on file work are healthy and active.

    Invest in a reputable email provider – Free sender platforms will not cut it when it comes to email marketing. This means leaving your Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo accounts for personal use and looking into HubSpot, MailChimp, SendinBlue, and more.

    Designing a Website with a Low Bounce Rate
    Having a website with a bounce rate requires constant monitoring and maintenance.
    By making sure your content is aligned with your visitors’ needs, your content is easy to navigate, and your conversion elements are clear, you can keep a low bounce rate.
    Ready to start optimizing your website? Use this checklist as your guide. It includes everything you’ll need to improve your website performance, including SEO and security.
    Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in July 2014 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

  • BIMI: What Is It and What Does It Mean for You?

    This is our third piece in a series on email deliverability and the features that affect it. To catch up, check out our first and second pieces.
    The world of email marketing is always changing. Email services are always looking for ways to better their user experience, or add an extra layer of security. And email marketers always need to be ready to adapt.
    When Google announced that they will support BIMI, a new feature coming onto the market that offers both enhanced user experience and added security, marketers began asking — Is this the next big thing?
    The answer? Maybe!
    As with any new feature in the email marketing landscape, it’s time to investigate. Let’s take a look at what, exactly, BIMI is, how it works, and how you can implement it in your email marketing strategy.
    What is BIMI?
    BIMI stands for Brand Indicators for Message Identification. In short, BIMI shows your company’s logo next to the marketing emails you send while they’re in your subscribers’ inboxes, like the photo below.

    BIMI serves a couple of unique purposes. First, it brings brand recognition to the sender’s emails by placing the logo next to them. This creates a strong visual association.
    Second, BIMI works like a security feature. With your logo displaying next to your message, this validates to your subscribers that this message is, indeed, from you, not an imposter. 
    In a time when it’s harder to stand out in an inbox than ever before, and in a day when phishing emails are on the rise, you can see why this would be a very appealing feature to email marketers. You get brand recognition in the inbox, more protection over your brand reputation, and better control over your subscribers’ experience.
    Win, win, win — right?
    How do you implement BIMI?
    This is where that maybe comes in.
    While the technical elements used to pull the logo is the same across mailbox providers, the requirements for BIMI vary between them.
    Verizon Media Group (Yahoo, AOL, etc.) currently requires the following:

    Logo validation
    DMARC-level authentication on the domain’s DNS

    A healthy sender reputation

    Google requires the same for Gmail, along with a few more things like a logo copyright and a VMC (Verified Mark Certificate). This makes BIMI implementation at Google more than just a technical adjustment, as getting those elements in place can be a long process.
    To get BIMI to work for Gmail, you’ll have to go through the following requirements:

    Set up DKIM authentication with your domain for your mail streams

    Set up a DMARC record with a policy other than p=none 

    Copyright your logo 

    Purchase a VMC for that logo 

    Create an SVG Tiny PS version of your official logo 

    Set up a BIMI TXT record on your domain’s DNS 

    Test your setup to see if it functions properly 

    And after all that, your logo can appear in the inbox next to your emails in a Gmail inbox.
    What does BIMI mean for me?
    The ability to provide email validation and greater brand visibility in the inbox is an appealing thing for marketers. 
    So how do you know if it’s a right fit for you?

    Look at a breakdown of your subscribers’ email client usage and see if these listed BIMI-supporters are well represented there.

    Look at the requirements for each provider and see which ones you already have in place.
    Look at what it would require to set up the remaining elements. Note: make sure to consider BIMI-setup-assistance services if that will help you get started.

    And remember — because the requirements are currently on a per email-provider basis, the decision to implement doesn’t have to be all or nothing.
    If you’ve determined you’d like to start, you can begin by meeting Yahoo’s requirements and testing with those users. Then, if you’re seeing positive results, that might be a sign to invest in the setup required to use BIMI for Gmail users as well.
    Wrap Up
    Email security and validation have never been more needed in the history of email — and BIMI is a great chance to provide both of those things.
    Whether you are planning to move forward with this or not, it is important to remember that new technological elements work best when paired with quality list maintenance.
    If BIMI sounds like a great fit for you and your organization, then implementing is a no-brainer. Getting the proper authentications and copyrights can be time-consuming if not already in place. But, for a more secure and more trusted user experience, it could be well worth it.
    The post BIMI: What Is It and What Does It Mean for You? appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

  • Don’t you have budget for email marketing tool?

    Check out the top13 free email marketing tools to launch your email campaign without spending any penny.
    submitted by /u/digitalthoughtz [link] [comments]

  • Building a culture of innovation: an insightful conversation with Neetan Chopra

    One of the most common reasons for companies to create apps is to increase customer engagement, provide a better experience and ultimately, generate growth. However, it is rare for organizations to develop smartphone solutions to accommodate various employee’s needs. That’s why Axis Partners got curious about the One App by Dubai Holding. This solution is…
    The post Building a culture of innovation: an insightful conversation with Neetan Chopra appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

  • Tableau Conference 2021 – Registration Open!

    Tableau Conference is Tableau’s main annual event which will take place digitally over multiple days (previously hosted in Las Vegas, during non-COVID times). If you want to learn more about Tableau – this free event is your perfect opportunity. Tableau Conference 2021, taking place November… Read More

  • Top 10 Project Risks and How to Mitigate Them

    Anyone who works on projects will know that they aren’t all plain sailing. Projects are defined to bring about change in an organisation. Very frequently they are process and technology-centric but they all have one element in common, human interaction. With this combination of elements… Read More

  • Slack Training Resources – Get Ahead of the Curve

    Since the Salesforce Slack acquisition closed, we’ve seen a constant stream of news surrounding the future of the platform. Most recently, Salesforce announced the first integrations that could be the start of many game changing features for Salesforce & Slack users. But how will these… Read More

  • Have you ever wondered how do chatbots work? What is the technology behind them and how does it actually solve our problems as customers?

    Together with our team, we worked on a very comprehensive and simple to understand overview of the technology that by the end of the post will help you to understand the way chatbot works, what is the technology behind it, how it can be applied in a business. We are covering the following terms.
    Natural Language Processing (NLP) Natural Language Understanding (NLU) Solution Flow Management Natural Language Generation
    Perhaps there is something else you would like to know?
    submitted by /u/mindtitanai [link] [comments]

  • 8 Tips for the Ideal Call Center Environment

    A company’s work environment isn’t just about air conditioning, water cooler chats, and table tennis. Employees, especially call center agents, spend a significant portion of their lives at work. Your call center or contact center environment plays a big role in how engaged your agents are in their day-to-day work.
    How to Foster Agent Engagement in a Hybrid Contact Center
    What is a healthy work environment?
    Healthy work environments are usually positive workplaces that value employee health and wellness, education, growth, and goal achievement. Employees that work in positive environments usually perform better, and feel more happy and comfortable.
    Some common attributes of a healthy work environment include:

    Recognition and praise.
    Physically comfortable workspace.
    Open communication.
    Encouraging career growth.
    Work-life balance.

    Some common attributes of an unhealthy work environment include:

    Workplace gossip.
    Micromanagement.
    Burnt out employees.
    Little to no career growth or learning opportunities.
    High employee turnover.

    How does a call center environment affect agents?
    A work environment plays a great role in a company’s culture, productivity, and overall success. It also impacts employee engagement and retention. Did you know that 58% of employees who have quit their jobs cited negative office politics as a reason? Contrarily, 58% of employees said they would stay working for a company with a lower salary if they had a great boss.
    Here are some ways that your work environment affects your agents:

    Productivity.
    Customer experience.
    Agent morale.
    Agent turnover.

    DID YOU KNOW?
    Visual IVR, Voice Call-Backs, and Smart Routing are all great tools to decrease call volume, improve customer satisfaction, and in turn, improve agent productivity and overall work experience.

    8 tips for creating an ideal call center environment.
    Your call center environment affects so many key functions of your operations. Agent turnover, customer experience, morale, and productivity are all vital components of a call center that you should make sure are in a good state. Here are some tips to improve your call center environment:
    1. Have a clear vision and values.
    Your team vision and values are great tools to motivate call center agents, assist them in decision-making, and unite them as a team.
    A clear vision defines a call center’s purpose and future goals. Strong values guide your workplace culture, and help you attract talent with similar values. Your management team should be transparent on how agents can adopt these values and answer any questions they might have.
    2. Create a comfortable and inviting workspace.
    Do you feel at ease physically and emotionally in the call center? If you don’t, chances are your agents don’t either.
    Your work environment should be comfortable because your agents spend so much time there. Evaluate the desks, chairs, lighting, air quality, and noise levels to ensure they’re conducive to a productive environment for your team.
    If anything feels uncomfortable, make some upgrades. Improve your air ventilation, or invest in some ergonomic chairs. These upgrades can make agents feel drastically better at work each day. Also, give your agents some freedom in how they personalize their space. Photos of loved ones and plants might make them feel more comfortable.
    How to Create a Call Center Performance Report
    3. Recognize agents for strong performance.
    Don’t just focus on sales goals and revenue. Your agents will not appreciate being seen as workhorses. Recognition and praise are part of any healthy work environment, and also improve agent engagement. Your agents provide excellent customer support and go above and beyond to ensure a great customer experience.
    Find ways to recognize your agents for the great work they do each day. If you notice impeccable service in your call monitoring or see positive customer service reviews online, use that as an excuse to celebrate! Say thank you, and offer your agents praise and rewards for a job well done. It can be as small as a free lunch or an earlier end to a shift. Or, you could go one step further and develop a performance incentive program.
    4. Encourage collaboration.
    Your work environment is more positive when people are collaborating. As a manager, you’re responsible for giving your agents opportunities to come together and feel connected, while also fulfilling your call center goals.
    Make time for team-building exercises, group projects, joint outings, parties, and other events to keep your team connected. This is especially necessary if any of your team is working from home.
    5. Offer training and learning opportunities.
    Your agents will have more confidence in serving customers if they have the proper training. Don’t just provide training during onboarding – put focus on providing ongoing learning opportunities so your agents can stay up to date with product/service knowledge, best practices, and more.
    By offering your agents tips and tricks throughout their tenure, it gives them the opportunity to consistently improve. Explore call center training workshops, conferences, and mentoring to provide more learning opportunities.
    5 Best Practices for Training Remote Call Center Agents
    6. Communicate well, and often.
    Your agents spend most of their workday on the front lines talking to customers. So, it’s easy for them to feel disconnected from management and the team – especially if they are working remotely.
    Managers and leaders must communicate well and often with their agents, especially before making decisions about call center operations. Lack of communication can breed distrust and low morale, both of which contribute to a negative work environment.
    Host regular meetings to listen to your agents’ feedback, observations, and opinions. In turn, managers can discuss their operational goals and use agents’ input to inform operational decisions. You might also consider investing in strong messaging chat software to encourage communication between team members.

    TIP:
    Regular communication is great, but it should also be clear. Make sure you share your call center’s performance goals and desired agent objectives immediately. Your agents should know exactly what you expect from them, and feel empowered to pursue their goals.

    7. Schedule effectively.
    Strategic scheduling makes a world of a difference in agent satisfaction and call center productivity. Ensure you have a proper call volume forecast set up to aid your scheduling efforts.
    Make sure you have enough agents, including agents with experience, for times of immense call volume. Avoid scheduling newer agents during peak periods, so they aren’t left overwhelmed. You should also account for regular breaks to ensure your agents don’t burn out.
    8. Invest in technology.
    Proper technology is essential for agents to do their jobs well. If your office computers are slow and outdated, your agents will find difficulty even in the most straightforward tasks. That’s why it’s so important to assess your technology regularly and make the required upgrades.
    You should also invest in the right call center technology to keep your call center operations productive and your agents at top efficiency. This will improve your work environment, since your team members will have one less reason to find something negative about work.
    Top Call Center Technologies to Boost Call Center Agent Engagement
    Conclusion.
    Your call center’s efficiency and productivity come down to how your agents feel in their work environment. Improve agent morale and satisfaction by investing in their workspace and taking the time to improve their day-to-day work.The post Blog first appeared on Fonolo.

  • Solving for stress

    If we’re hungry, the obvious solution is to eat something.

    If we’re restless, it pays to get up and walk around.

    Is stress different?

    Along the way, it seems as though we got confused about the best way to deal with the stress that comes from work and from the projects we work on.

    “Push through the stress and on the other side, everything will be okay.”

    Simply get all the details right, get an A, get into a famous college, make the sale, polish the logo, do the pitch and then… reassurance will follow.

    The reassurance of success or even survival. The reassurance of external acclaim or simply relief.

    Now that everything’s okay, no need to be stressed!

    Until the next time. Which might be tomorrow.

    Reassurance is futile, because there’s never enough of it.

    Some folks manage to get their projects done without this sort of stress. They’re not using the search for reassurance as fuel.

    The solution to stress isn’t reassurance. It’s accurately understanding the world as it is, and making choices about what we do and how we do it. But far more than that, we relieve stress by making choices about the stories we tell ourselves.

    What’s the difference between giving a speech to your dog and giving one on the TED stage? It’s the same speech. The difference is in the story we tell ourselves about the stakes, the opportunity and what might happen next. If that story gets debilitating enough, it can paralyze us.

    If you’re on a backpacking trip, there’s little doubt that ten more minutes of tired to get to the next campsite is a smart investment. A little more tired translates into a lot more rest.

    But if you’re at work, there’s not a lot of evidence that more stress is the best way to have less stress.

    Look for the story instead.

    [PS It’s not easy to change your story. For some people, and in some situations, it’s almost impossible. But that doesn’t mean that more stress in search of reassurance is going to make your search for a useful story any easier. If others in your situation have figured out a story that works for them, that’s a good sign that you might find one too. If no one has, changing your situation (if you can) might be the best way forward. But we need to get unhooked from the cycle of reassurance.]