Customer retention marketing is a must, especially for an eCommerce business. This is the best way to make sure to get sales with your existing customers. That way, you can even get new customers from word of mouth. However, making your customers stays with you is not as easy as it sounds. You will need to do other things to set you apart from other shopping websites. You also need to leave an impression on your website visitors that you mean business.
If you don’t know where to start, you can check some list below in order for you to win from customer retention. It’s not rocket science so anyone who has a business mind can do it. All you need to do is to have these basic things to give you a head start with your eCommerce business. You may think that it needs special skills to get your customers to keep on coming back. But you will be happy to know that it only takes a few steps for you to get customer retention. Here are a few tips that you can start applying with your business now to keep your existing customers on your side all the time.
Best Ways to Achieve Customer Retention:
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1. Using Virtual Phone Number
Customers are wiser now. They are making sure that if they need further help, there’s a phone number to call. It will also look good to have a phone number posted on your website. By displaying a working virtual phone number, your customers will know where to call if something happened on their purchase. That will give them a good feeling about your website. Most likely, they will keep buying from you as long as you deliver your products well.
Trust is the best marketing you can have. When people trust your website, they will keep buying from you. Do not underestimate the power of having a contact number. When you have a trustworthy website, you will gain more customers and you will also have loyal buyers. It’s a sign that you are not hiding anything from them and earn their trust almost instantly.
2. Impress Your Customer
Always impress your customers especially that you have a lot of competition online. Select your products and make sure that it’s always of good quality. Price and quality are what a customer needs to buy from your website. Choose good quality products but make it affordable. You can do your marketing research to compare your pricing with your competition. It’s not cheating but it’s a normal thing any business person will do.
You can impress your customers with a user-friendly website. Do not make it complicated for them to select the products they want to buy. Make it easy for them to add to their cart as well so that they can continue to shop. Try to make your website impressive and avoid unreadable fonts. Make sure that you will give an accurate description of your items to avoid return items. Aim for perfection but always be open with suggestions.
3. Anticipate Customer Needs
Make sure that you always expect that your customers may need further help. Getting an item sold is not the end of it. You might also need to offer a faster shipping method for them.
Review your products as well. Check if you can add more but related products to complement what you have. That way, your customers don’t need to go to another website if they need socks to complement their shoes.
You may also want to include a chatbox on your website. That way, they can instantly send a message to you if they have other questions. It might be the only thing that’s holding them back to buy again from you. Always make yourself ready to answer questions your customers may have. They might need something else and just having a hard time looking for it on your website. Guide them and make sure to discuss this concern to avoid it from happening again.
You may like: Best Ways to Anticipate Customer Needs (Infographic).
4. Customer Support
One of the best ways for you to get customer retention is to offer good support to your customers. They will feel more at ease to buy on your website. Plus, they will always check your online shop for other possible needs they may have in the future. By providing good customer support for your customers, they will keep on buying from you. This is the best way to keep your customers and even gain new ones. When they know that you care for them, they will most likely buy your product just because you have good customer support.
Some people just like complaining but they can turn to one of your most loyal customers in the long run. If you can afford it, hire someone to do customer service for you. However, if you are just starting out, it’s best to handle complaints yourself. If you know the usual customer concerns, then you can do something about it and make it better. Feedbacks from your customers is very useful for your business success. Make sure to take them constructively to make your business better.
5. Customer retention data analysis
One of the key areas to work in an eCommerce company is to analyze customer data to the minutest level. It is extremely important to understand the mood of the customers. Churn data along with churn reasons with calculated stats can give accurate reasons as to why the customers are churning. Once the common reasons are identified, it is the job of the executive team to take corrective measures and put them into perspective.
Here are some of the factors and reasons that you should look for while analyzing the data before setting up your eCommerce customer retention marketing strategy.
- Reason for leaving the platform: Find the most common reason for churn by grouping them into different categories such as user experience, technical issues, customer service, and product issues.
- Customer retention ratio: Once you have the count against the reason for churn. Find out the percentage of customers leaving the platform due to a specific reason. This will help you prioritize the first action plan.
- Geographical bifurcation: It is a possibility that customers might churn due to high competition in a particular area. Hence, it is important to group customers by their geographical locations.
- Internal process audit: It is one of the most neglected areas that eCommerce companies often forget to look into. Go through the process of marketing, acquisition, and retention and find the loopholes.
Marketing strategies to retain customers:
- Ask for feedback: Every time the customer wants to leave your platform, ask for feedback and specific reasons as to why they want to leave. Some of the reasons that you can mention are- pricing, user experience, product interface, customer support, insufficient product, insufficient product, found a competitive product and not needed.
- Offer extensions and discounts: If you are into the subscription model. It is wise to offer discounts if the customer stays with you for a longer time. You can also offer discounts if the customer is finding the pricing too high for a product or a service.
- Send them personalized messages: Recognition is important in this business. Make the customers feel good about themselves as they are using your platform for purchases. You can send them birthday wishes, anniversary wishes, etc. and offer the best price possible for a product that they are interested in, based on their behavior.
- Add them to your mailing list: Even if the customer is no longer with you. You can keep sending them informative emails about your blogs and news. You never know when they feel the need for your product. However, keep in mind that they are not being bothered if they have unsubscribed to your list.
You may also like: 5 Effortless Strategies to Raise Your Instagram eCommerce Store.
Conclusion:
Customer retention marketing is an important part of having an eCommerce business. Not only it will make you get more sales from existing customers but they can even suggest your website to their friends. It will help you take care of your regular customers and grow your business this way.
An eCommerce business is also like other businesses out there. It needs customers in order for it to grow and keep up on doing business. Take good care of your existing customers to make sure that you will have loyal customers in the long run.
Being able to keep your customers loyal to your business is a good sign that your business is doing well. Try to always be available for them if they need your help with your products. Sometimes showing your customers that you care for them may be the best asset you can apply for your business.
This article is written by Samantha Roberson. She is a marketing manager at TalkRoute. She is a vivid reader who likes to read about hacks and tricks to be applied for businesses to grow faster.
Web developer and SEO specialist with 20+ years of experience in open-source web development, digital marketing, and search engine optimization. He is also the moderator of this blog "RS Web Solutions (RSWEBSOLS)".
