Joyce Chou 4 years ago
With the global online retail market topping $3.4 trillion in sales in 2019, customer loyalty in eCommerce has never been more important—or more difficult.
It’s no secret that upping the number of return customers can increase brand awareness and reduce the cost of acquiring new customers. But, in a world where customer support speed, and convenience mean everything, brand loyalty can be slippery at best.
Not to mention, online customer retention is much harder than it is for brick-and-mortar businesses. Why? In-person stores have more opportunities for personalized service and to build relationships with staff members—although COVID-19 is certainly changing this. In fact, the 2020’s global pandemic makes developing customer loyalty more important than ever for eCommerce businesses.
If you’re looking to improve customer loyalty for your own online brand, you need to leverage every tool at your disposal. For starters, you can maximize your eCommerce business’s customer loyalty through these seven tactics.
Think of your eCommerce storefront as your resume and a consumer’s first visit to your site as a job interview of sorts. It’s crucial to make a great first impression. The best way to accomplish this is with authentic messaging that connects and excites an audience but never oversells or falsifies any information. After all, 91% of people are more likely to buy from an authentic brand than a dishonest one.
To make you’re messaging more sincere, be sure to:
Depending on what your brand sells, you may even want to create a dedicated landing page instead of relying solely on product pages to communicate what your brand is all about. Just remember to answer these key questions:
For an example of an effective sales page, look no further than the online furniture retailer Lovesac.
Its informative and interactive sales page communicates to customers who it is—and its value—in a straightforward yet engaging way.
A customer may identify with your brand and make a purchase, but it doesn’t guarantee their return business. To forge a more human connection with buyers, it’s important to use clear, personalized messaging.
Why personalize customer communication? Relevant emails outperform broadcast emails by a wide margin, driving up to 18 times more revenue than generic messaging.
To start, send a welcome email within the first 48 hours of a customer’s purchase or signup. You can even sweeten the pot by offering recipients a discount code or an exclusive piece of content, like a members-only video.
Besides a welcome message, send customers a follow-up email after any and every purchase. Take the opportunity to thank them for their trust in your brand, give them all pertinent order details, and open the door for clients to ask any post-purchase questions they may have.
It’s not just email marketing that works for ecommerce, by the way.
Online businesses should make use of other channels like social media and their respective messaging platforms. For some inspiration, check out DOYOUEVEN’s case study on the power of communication through Facebook Messenger.
(Image credit: Octane AI)
Using both Messenger and SMS, the activewear brand succeeded in boosting its overall revenue by 10%—the perfect example of how active, personalized communication can win over more repeat customers.
It’s not enough to simply wait and hope one-time buyers will turn into repeat customers. To find out how your product is really performing with buyers, you should seek out honest consumer feedback.
The most personalized way of collecting feedback is through one-on-one interaction with a customer support representative. This way, your team can get a real sense of which areas are your product’s strong points and which ones need improvement.
Of course, this style of collecting feedback can be inefficient.
Another more convenient way to collect product feedback is by sending a digital survey to gauge consumer satisfaction. This method is more impersonal but is by no means less valuable. Clients may also be more open to sharing their opinions through a survey.
It all goes back to the idea of customers feeling like they’re part of your brand because they’re being heard. The respect that’s earned in these moments plants the seed for strong, lasting eCommerce customer loyalty later on.
First-rate customer support has long been a cornerstone of businesses with excellent brand loyalty. However, as of 2018, only 19% of businesses say they have a dedicated support team to manage the customer experience.
Without an actionable plan in place, below-average customer support translates into lost investment and diminished brand loyalty. If a customer is unhappy with their experience, the right response can mean the difference between retaining those clients or losing them for good.
Contrary to popular belief, excellent customer service goes beyond hiring more staff and making a good first impression. It’s an ongoing process that continually evolves alongside raised consumer expectations. To enhance your brand’s customer experience, try these tactics:
By improving customer support, you’ll not only boost brand loyalty but also customers’ willingness to pay more for your products. After all, 86% of buyers are willing to shell out more cash for better customer support.
Generating loyal customers who grace your storefront with repeat business is great, but how do you keep them interested over time?
The answer lies in giving back to brand loyalists with a rewards program. It’s a way to entice people to join what is essentially your brand’s fan club, all while earning gifts, discounts, or even free products along the way.
One of the best-known rewards program success stories is Starbucks. The coffee behemoth boasts over 19 million active members in the U.S. alone, up 15% year-over-year. Basing the rewards system on earning stars for every dollar spent, it’s a model of efficient user engagement.
Just a few of Starbucks’ pillars for success include:
Though it’s not an ecommerce business, Starbucks offers a terrific example of how inclusive and attractive a customer loyalty rewards system can be.
Rewards programs can also generate a contagious buzz, as studies show that participating clients visit a company’s site 35% more frequently. Better yet, you can even build site visits directly into your loyalty program by making them a way to earn points. Check out how online thrift store thredUP does this:
No matter which approach you take, giving back to buyers via loyalty programs makes customers feel like they’re part of your brand.
Not all loyalty programs are created equal. Some will start off well and then stagnate after a few months. As a result, the momentum needed to generate sustained customer loyalty peters out.
But you can avoid this scenario by gamifying your ecommerce loyalty program. Whether it’s through a points system or another method, gamification incentivizes your customers to take action and continually participate in an entertaining way.
This encouragement to get to the next level, either through earning points or spending more money on your brand’s products, promotes recurring behavior. By baking this into customers’ interactions with your business, gamification moves engagement beyond transactional events alone.
Some non-purchase gamification elements earning rewards or points for:
30% of consumers switch providers because they feel that there is no reward for loyalty. Increase customer engagement by giving them a real reason to stick around and get to the next level in their customer journey.
After building a customer-brand relationship, customer loyalty becomes more about keeping users from moving to a competitor. The only lasting way to achieve that is by continuously improving your product.
Infrequent product upgrades send the wrong message to customers. You risk falling behind the minimum marketplace standards for your product and give competitors an opportunity to surpass your brand by exceeding those quality benchmarks.
This process doesn’t happen overnight. It takes drive, leadership, and a long-term vision. Contrary to media and news reports, many of the biggest “overnight” successes in eCommerce, like Amazon and Wayfair, were years in the making. The people at the helm of those organizations had the wherewithal to work at their offerings and make them great instead of just “good enough.”
By focusing on quality and keeping up with both your competitors and market trends, you aren’t giving customers an excuse to jump ship. Instead, you’re enticing them with something that’s always getting better. What better reward for loyalty could you ask for?
Increasing customer loyalty and retaining the buyers who support your brand is essential for ecommerce growth. It creates great word-of-mouth buzz and can greatly reduce customer acquisition costs.
By leveraging authentic, personalized messaging, you’ll hook customers from the first visit to your site. Getting their feedback and using that data to improve your product can also go a long way in upping brand loyalty. Finally, excellent customer support and gamified rewards programs will further incentivize people to stick with your organization, even if competitors are nipping at your heels.
Just remember: customers want to be heard, they want added convenience, and they want to feel like they’re a part of something real and exciting. It’s up to you to consistently hit those notes.
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Joyce Chou is a Content Marketing Strategist at compose.ly, a content platform that matches businesses with seasoned freelance writers. Apart from managing and writing for Compose.ly’s blog, Joyce also contributes to other publications about digital marketing, personal finance, and business and eCommerce.
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