Don’t Give Your Customers the Chance to Walk Away

Brands invest heavily in attraction and new customer acquisition but what about their bread and butter, their existing customers. Should more focus be given to keep customers coming back for more? The short answer is yes.

It costs over five times more to win a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. Not only that, profitability is at least three times higher from an existing customer. So why do 44% of companies have a stronger focus on acquisition then they do with retention?

Brands are investing more into their marketing campaigns to drive customer acquisition, across multiple platforms such as digital, traditional and programmatic, constantly moving budgets around to improve cost efficiency and brand effectiveness. But should you be questioning the balance of investment between customer acquisition and customer retention?

The ultimate goal for most businesses is to increase new customers day by day, increasing sales and profitability. This is always a challenge with customer behaviour constantly changing, new technologies being developed and introduced and of course market unpredictability (yes, I’m going to say it, the B word..Brexit).

The customer journey and experience extends past the initial sale and presents a number of opportunities to talk to your customer and create delightful moments through your service. The question is, are you maximising these opportunities?

Engaging with your customer post purchase is more than just an email asking them to rate your products and services, or offer a 10% discount code off their next purchase. Brands have to be more personal and should focus on nurturing the customer beyond ‘the buy’.

After the buying stage there is a gap in time, a moment when brands can grab the opportunity to quickly connect with customers that are waiting for the their delivery. Customers that have chosen to interact and buy from your business are more responsive, and therefore more likely to be receptive to further communication.

According to the Narvar report there are several stages after ‘the buy’ that retailers can take advantage of, and interact with their customers to improve retention and of course profitability, these are:

• Anticipation
• Delivery
• Care

Customers expect to be engaged with after they press the buy button. They want notifications about their order and expect it through multiple touchpoints. They like reassurance their parcel is on its way; an email confirming the order, updates on dispatch, a text message from the couriers with a time slot, tools to track their parcels and delivery confirmation — all this helps to build a positive relationship with your customer and creates a good brand experience.

It is important that retailers care about their customers and should ask for feedback good or bad, being transparent throughout the whole process develops customers’ trust in your brand.

To conclude; the customer experience doesn’t end at ‘the buy’, it goes a lot further, retailers can really take advantage of the lull between purchase and delivery, by making connections with the customer to improve their satisfaction and increase retention.

Once you have a successful retention plan in place, you can collect more data and start to profile your customers, building a complete picture of their likes, favourite products, social channels and more. This is when you can take post purchase marketing to the next level, to find out how, check out our blog…Let’s Get Personal.

References:

https://www.invespcro.com/blog/customer-acquisition-retention/

https://corp.narvar.com/benchmark/