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We won’t tell you that acquiring a new customer is way more expensive than retaining an existing one because you are probably tired of hearing that. And we also won’t tell you that existing customers tend to order more because who doesn’t know that? But what we will tell you today is the top 15 customer retention strategies for eCommerce, so you can discover all that for yourself.
If you want to increase sales and become the number one online store, this guide is for you!
Table of Contents
- What is Customer Retention?
- How do you calculate the customer retention rate (CRR)?
- Top 15 Customer Retention Strategies For eCommerce
- Know your customer well
- Resolve issues and answer questions quickly
- Engage through different platforms
- Offer a personalized experience
- Create loyalty programs
- Constantly ask for feedback
- Set the right expectations and exceed them
- Educate customers
- Form an online community
- Support causes that customers care about
- Show gratitude
- Inspire with a story or a mission
- Surprise customers
- Automate whatever can be automated
- Stay consistent in quality
What is Customer Retention?
Before we go into detail about the top customer retention strategies for eCommerce businesses, let’s take a minute to learn exactly what it is.
Customer retention is a metric to measure customer loyalty and purchase frequency. In other words, it is used to calculate how often customers come back to buy from your online store.
Accordingly, improving customer retention means higher sales and revenues!
With this in mind, let’s calculate your customer retention rate (CRR) and see how you can improve it.
How Do You Calculate the Customer Retention Rate (CRR)?
To calculate your customer retention rate you need to subtract the number of new customers acquired from the number of customers at the end of a specific period. Then divide it by the number of customers at the start of the period and multiply it by 100.
CRR = total number of customers at the end of a specific period - number of new customers acquired during that period / total number of customers at the start of the period x 100
Calculated your CRR?
Is it high?
Is it low?
It doesn’t matter; there is always room for improvement!
So let’s deeply dive into the top 15 customer retention strategies for eCommerce.
** Discover more in Customer Retention Rate: What's It and Why it's Vital for E-commerce
Top 15 Customer Retention Strategies For eCommerce
Want to increase customer retention and have the most loyal customer base out there? Then you should:
1- Know your customer well
One of the most important customer retention strategies to start with is knowing your customers well. By that, we don’t just mean study your existing customer base and tailor your message to them. But also you have to learn who your ideal customers are and target them.
Getting the right customers from the very beginning will definitely enhance your chances and ease the process of trying to keep them for the long run.
2- Resolve issues and answer questions quickly
Did you know that customers are 93% more likely to make repeat purchases from businesses that provide great customer service?
To take advantage of that whopping number, you simply have to provide good customer service. This means being empathetic towards customers’ issues and helping them resolve them.
Additionally, you should offer more than one way for customers to get the answers they want. For instance, you can add an FAQ page, an automated chatbot, and most importantly means to communicate with one of your staff members (quickly).
3- Engage through different platforms
Most blogs advise you to see where your customers are and reach them there. That’s absolutely correct, but if you are doing it on just one platform, all your hard work can be in vain.
Ok, that may be a bit exaggerated, but in this day and age, no successful e-commerce business can be active on just one platform.
4- Offer a personalized experience
Over the past few years, personalization has become a customer expectation, not a perk, especially in the eCommerce industry. Customers are nostalgic for that one-on-one brick-and-mortar experience.
Through the data you have (previous orders, browsed pages, reviews, etc.) you can create a completely personalized experience for each customer.
5- Create loyalty programs
Nothing gets you loyalty more than incentivizing loyalty!
By creating loyalty programs, you are rewarding customers for always choosing you. There are plenty of programs you can introduce but what really matters are the rewards. Make sure that you choose the right incentive to ensure customers actually care about those programs.
Hands down this is one of the most important customer retention strategies for eCommerce businesses.
6- Constantly ask for feedback
Did the customer get their order? Ask for feedback.
Another customer opted into your email list? Ask for feedback.
Any activity a customer does with your business can be an opportunity to get their feedback. But don’t be a nagging Nancy and ask for feedback every day.
Needless to say, don’t just ask for feedback and call it a day. You have to use this data to improve customer service, product development, and the overall experience customers have with your online store.
7- Set the right expectations and exceed them
One of the best ways to hold on to your customers is setting the right expectations from the very first touch point they have with your online store - usually, that’s the welcome email.
This includes specifications about products, delivery, packaging, and anything that might affect their experience with your business.
Keep in mind that it doesn’t hurt to exceed those expectations whenever you can!
8- Educate customers
No matter what products you are selling, customers probably don’t know everything about it. Use that opportunity to educate them and offer knowledge about different topics concerning the products and the pain points they tackle.
This makes you a trusted source that helps customers, not just another online store pushing its products over and over again.
9- Form an online community
Offering a space for your customers to discuss products creates an online community around your business.
How is that helpful to you?
Simply, it offers accurate insights into your customers’ opinions and encourages customer engagement. All of which will result in a higher customer retention rate.
10- Support causes that customers care about
While we are on the subject of customer engagement, nothing says loyalty and engagement more than supporting the same causes your customers care about.
To truly stand out, you should take this a step further and don’t just do some CSR work every once in a while. Instead, your eCommerce business can alter its operations to fit those causes.
For instance, if your customer base cares about the environment, you should take action to reduce your carbon footprint.
11- Show gratitude
Saying thank you and showing gratitude goes a long way with customers. Just sending a simple thank you for shopping with us email can help you build stronger relationships with your customers and get a much higher repeat customer rate.
12- Inspire with a story or a mission
Nothing resonates more with customers than humanized businesses. Who wants to buy from heartless corporates?
To humanize your eCommerce business, you just need to shed light on the ones behind it all. If you are a family business or you have an inspiring starting story, then you already hit the jackpot, just tell customers all about it.
Don’t have one? No problem, just create the right mission that showcases what you stand for and who you are.
13- Surprise customers
Is it a customer’s birthday? Is it Mother’s Day? Valentine?
Any occasion can be used to delightfully surprise customers. You don’t have to go overboard; just the thought of sending a small gift in the form of a voucher, discount, free delivery, etc., will be great.
14- Automate whatever can be automated
One of the most beneficial customer retention strategies that you can’t afford to miss is automation. As automation helps you in enhancing personalization, engagement, data management, segmentation, and countless other factors that positively affect customer retention.
Marketing operating systems for eCommerce like ConvertedIn can help you with all that.
15- Stay consistent in quality
Last but surely not least, you have to constantly offer the same high-quality product customers are used to getting from your online store. Because at the end of the day, nothing is actually more important than the product itself!
So stock up your warehouses; these customer retention strategies can help you effortlessly increase sales and revenues.
ConvertedIn can also help you increase those sales and revenues!
Book a demo now with one of our experts to upgrade your eCommerce marketing game.
