8 Strategies To Enhance Ecommerce Customer Retention And Loyalty

Marketing experts say that keeping an existing consumer is easier and more inexpensive than engaging a new prospect. There is no need to spend much time nurturing relationships with existing consumers as you already have established one. Customer retention is crucial, especially for e-commerce businesses. The drawback of an online organization is you lack physical connection, which can make you lose prospects. It is crucial to create an efficient customer retention strategy.

8 strategies to enhance e-commerce customer retention and loyalty

1. Shopping cart abandonment recovery email

Cart abandonment recovery email is a follow-up message sent to a potential consumer who added items to their cart and moved towards checkout but left without buying. The emails remind customers about their abandoned carts, as well as tempt them to revisit and purchase the items they were close to buying. Cart abandonment email strategies to apply are as follows:

• Reveal credibility and trust in the email via ratings and reviews from past customers and social channels can work on skeptical first-time customers.
• Some window shoppers add several similar products in the cart to consider later, so remarket such customers with a single product or the one they possibly planned to buy. Focus on that single product and communicate about the benefits or USPs [Unique Selling Propositions] of this item.
• Add some objectivity including current product reviews, which helps the consumer get an overall picture and make a purchase decision. Set email schedules, and they are sent automatically. You can monitor the results on a useful grid.

2. Offer loyalty and reward programs

Customers acquire a reason to continue purchase with your online store with a strong loyalty program strategy. Loyalty strategies are focused on bringing back and engaging the past and existing customers offering incentives and initiatives. It is a better option because customer acquisition is 5X costly than customer retention. According to a survey, enhancing customer retention by 5% escalates the revenues by 30% to 90%.

Here is a loyalty solution for your Magento store by Mageworx. This is a potent marketing software that can help you retain 60 to 70 percent of consumers using reward points. Introducing reward points influences loyalty and shoppers feel encouraged to write a review, subscribe, complete a purchase, repeat buying, and more.

Mageworx allows e-commerce store owners to implement their reward point program. Merchants get a chance to configure which activities will trigger adding reward points, including registration, subscription, sharing, writing a review, and even adding in-store credits on customers’ birthdays.

3. Personalized pricing

Personalized marketing is no different than the traditional advertising campaign. Marketers monitor the buyer’s activities, behavior, interaction, journey analysis, and retarget. Personalized pricing is an advanced automated pricing model.

Automation is used to target every website prospect with a price that harmonizes their individual buying threshold.

4. Out-of-stock emails

Out-of-stock inventory results in losing a lot of sales revenue and even customers. Mistakes happen but learn to deal with your valued consumers by sending emails as soon as possible with an apology for the inconvenience. Offer a reason and be honest, which the customers will appreciate. Don’t make it seem like an excuse.

Offer an alternative, so you don’t lose a customer. Some customers are happy to buy a similar product. You can send a notification to the consumer as soon as their preferred product is back in stock. Even if the product gets discontinued due to some reason, notify the customers and tell them how you will provide the refunds.

5. Add push notification plugin

Push notifications are similar to SMS and mobile alerts. They offer the user the convenience to receive messages from the utility services or news or flight check-ins. Push notifications are not trapped in spam filters and the click-through and engagement rates are high. Marketers can use this to promote products or discounted offers, write compelling messages on push notifications that influence users to take action. There are a lot of flexible push notification services like Reteno that can help you to automate and personalize your push campaigns.

6. Offer dedicated customer support

Never ignore customer support because it is an essential part that helps to build a remarkable customer experience. To provide customer support, you will need to be more cautious. Today, consumers are fully informed as they research before buying, and so their expectations are high. Therefore, to handle customer expectations and enhance their satisfaction, you need to offer outstanding support services.

• Offer right information
• Equip customer support teams with the necessary communication skills to impress consumers. Create memorable experiences.
• Offer real-time solutions without any delays. Today, consumers lack patience and so need instant solutions.
• Nurture customer relationships for maximum retention.
• Offer several platforms, so customers can approach the customer service staff with ease.
• Provide guarantees and discounts. They reduce cost pressure, and customers consider this seriously in their buying process.

7. Referral programs

Customer retention and reaching revenue goals is possible with customer referral program implementation. It reveals that you are confident in your brand and helps influence customers who need a little push.

Customer referral is valuable and hardly costs you money. You ask existing customers to share their product experiences with friends, colleagues, and neighbors. The referred prospects are familiar with your reputation and organization because the referral came from a trusted source.

8. Good PR & marketing strategy

Internet use is escalating, and every business, small or big, has an equal chance to create a brand and gain broad exposure. Potential buyers research products or services they need before approaching any retailer.

A purchase decision is made using such information. You can use this fact and create a quality website and an appealing PT & marketing plan. Some compelling marketing tips to attract, engage and retain customers are given below.

• Create a website that includes crucial information that allows building trust and credibility in consumer’s minds. Ensure that the website is mobile-friendly.
• Highly ranked websites on Google searches are essential because potential consumers can find you with ease.
• Do digital marketing through social platforms to promote business.
• Focus on customer retention through loyalty programs, reward points, email marketing, etc.
• Use chat box as a personalized target marketing option.

Sales and marketing is an ongoing process but helps to retain loyal customers for years!