To run any business, be it online or a physical store, it requires a constant flow of old and new customers. And when it comes to the investment of time and money made in both these types of customers, the old ones require less time and money as compared to the new customers.
Online business has the drawback of a lack of personal connection with clients, and hence the customer churn ratio tends to be more. Since new customers need to be convinced about the brand and product, the majority of the e-commerce companies, prefer to invest more time in retaining old customers, rather than trying new ones from scratch. Hence retention strategies play a crucial role in increasing conversions and ROI.
Customer Loyalty Statistics indicate that:
- 65% of the business is brought by loyal customers
- 82% of the companies admit that retention is cheaper than acquiring new clients
What is Customer Retention:
Customer retention is a process of captivating the existing customers into buying the products and services of your brand. Customer retention is at its best when it helps develop long-lasting relationships with customers. They also are called brand ambassadors, since they tend to influence their inner circles with word of mouth publicity.
Importance of Customer Retention:
Ever wondered what will happen when you forget about these clients who have invested money in your company’s products by purchasing them?
You lose out on revenue, conversions, referrals, and ROI. Multiplication of numbers is possible only when strong customer retention strategies are in place and existing customers are forced to return to your brand.
Advantages:
- Increase in Revenue
- A decrease in Promotional Expenses
- Increase in Referrals
- Decrease in Competition
- Improves Brand Image
Since the impact of customer retention is directly related to profits, ample strategies for customer retention are floating in the market. Try the best ones for your digital empire and improve your ROI.
All the retention strategies circle around 3 basic factors.
- Repetition of Customers
- Purchase Frequency of Customers
- Average Purchase Value of Customers
Let’s have a look at some of the customer retention strategies that work the best for any e-commerce business.
Strategies to Boost Customer Retention:
Email Marketing with Promotional Offers:
In online business, apart from online purchase and sale of products, connecting with customers online and online marketing of products via email weighs a lot of importance in maintaining customer loyalty.
After a few online purchases, customers tend to ignore the brand and products. To keep them constantly engaged, communication via email works the best. Thank you emails, emails stating discounts and offers, valuable and focused contents, and preferential emails (subscribed weekly or daily) as per client wishes, help in boosting customer retention.
SSL Certificate Security:
SSL (Secure Socket Layers) certificates encrypt browser – server communication and ensure safe data-in-transit. This digital certificate also guarantees the customer that their sensitive information (monetary transactions) is encrypted and safe from hackers. Customers love secured sites and hence retention is easy in such cases. If you are an ecommerce business owner and have multiple sub-domains of your website, then a wildcard SSL certificate is the ideal solution for you. You can find reliable SSL providers on the internet easily where you can compare the prices.
One such SSL certificate provider is SSL2BUY, which has all SSL brands and products.
Cross-Selling & Upselling Technique:
Additional offerings to products purchased by the existing customers help boost their purchases and entice them to buy more. This Cross-selling technique helps to retain stranded customers.
Example:
When a headphone is given as an additional supplement to a customer who has bought a mobile phone (as shown below), they tend to appreciate the company’s effort and oblige to stay loyal to the brand.
In Upselling, you entice the customer to buy an expensive product of your company to gain more revenue. In short, it is the marketing way to shift customer’s minds by proving their good decision to a better one.
Gratify Customers:
Customer’s mindset is wavery, because of strong competition and hence efforts made to delight customers is a positive step towards retention. Consistency in delighting customers, surprises on special occasions, free vouchers on specific purchase amounts, etc. all add up in gaining a loyal customer.
Example:
A discount voucher on a birthday or anniversary may make the customer feel delighted and special.
This memorable experience helps in retaining customers and adding one more loyal to your loyalty list.
Customer Loyalty Programmes:
Loyalty programs and retentions go hand in hand. Loyalty rewards attract repeat purchases, and they also help in increasing ROI, since 20% of the loyal customers, contribute to 80% of the profits.
Few Tips on Loyalty Programmes:
- Upfront discount before the offer starts
- Rewards on purchase amounts
- Special treatments
Improve Customer Support:
You may have noticed that companies lacking in customer service, lack customers too. Since both these factors are inter-related, a magnificent customer support strategy for retaining customers works wonders for the retention of customers.
A good customer support team for pre-sales and post-sales helps in better communication with the customers.
Customer Support Tips:
- Assist customers with their queries
- Provide solutions
- Friendly and Co-operative Attitude
- Personalized Experience
Your customer support team depicts the inflow of new customers as well as the loyalties of existing customers. Outstanding customer support is very encouraging to customers, who feel that their doubts and queries are heard and taken care of.
This helps build up a pile of positive reviews as well as stupefying relationships which in turn increases referrals and sales.
Example:
If the live chat option round the clock leads to an 80% customer satisfaction rate, then exclude the option of setting limited support of day-time hours.
Build Trust with Social Media Proofs:
Online customers are more cautious because they cannot physically check the product before purchase, nor do they know the authenticity of the brand or company. They need to rely on customer reviews and social media presence to trust the brand.
Before swapping their credit card on the internet, they need to trust the brand and ensure that their money is not wasted.
A strong social media presence influences and convinces customers to stay with your brand. Not only does this cease the churn ratio, but they also create an emotional bond with the customers.
Multiple social proofs which can be useful for your website are:
- Customer feedbacks
- Testimonials
- Referrals
- Brand logos
- Awards or Certifications
Positive feedbacks on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. also help improve retention ratio.
Multiple Delivery Options:
Customers love multiplicity, be it products or delivery options. A wide range of delivery options, give choice to the customer to choose their best option, thus encouraging them to return to you in the future.
Hassle-Free Returns:
Simplified return policies for returning undesired products and automatic refunds enables customers to risk buying products they are unsure of. Since they are aware of the hassle-free return process, they can make purchases at ease.
Rewards Programme:
Reward points on purchase amount or referrals received, make customers feel that they are a part of the company and are motivated to be loyal towards the same.
Many companies allow customers to buy discounts and coupons or products as per their choice, depending on the points accumulated.
Utilize Content Marketing:
Qualitative and relevant content not only enlightens the audience but also helps increase client loyalty. Personalized content, and personalized recommendations of products by the retention team, create positive vibes, giving customers a special feeling and a personalized treatment.
In the end, it’s all about adding a customer to your company and not about addition in sales digit.
Analyze and Track Customer Behaviour:
Customer buying habits and tracking customer behavior, their frequent visits, their loved pages, their favorite products, etc. help in building an efficient retention strategy.
Displaying the products having the highest clicks, also make customers spend more time on your site.
Journey Analytics:
A few critical questions like:
- How to eradicate poor customer experiences and customer interactions?
- Which customer segments need the most attention due to high churn?
- Which retention issues need quick resolve?
- Which unanswered technical issues lead to an increase in churn ratio?
Analysis of the above questions not only helps improve retention but also increases customer satisfaction by showing that your care for them and fulfill their expectations.
Wrapping Up:
A special connection with the customer, providing personalized experience, discounts, referral rewards, etc. all encourages them to stay with your company.
Since the customers decide the growth or shrink of the business, keep loyal customers to grow your digital business.
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