Global Ecommerce sales growing at an astronomical rate forecasted to grow to $5,542 billion by 2022 and expected to grow by 50% in the coming four years.
The technological advancements in the online retail industry have brought incredible innovations to the table, which has made customers powerful.
It means the customer is the king of online retail businesses that can make the business swim or sink.
Why it’s important to add customer loyalty quotient to the eCommerce development?
The people had much influence on what other people buy, which makes increasing customer loyalty vital to keep the new customers buying from the store.
Here’s the deal-the loyal customers can better spread good word of mouth, improve brand advocacy, and enhance brand awareness with social posting and other ways.
A couple of retention facts to make things clear.
- Retaining a customer is far more inexpensive than acquiring a new customer.
- A 7% increase in customer loyalty leads to an increase in customer LTV by 85%.
- Apple leads the market with potential sales through 92% customer loyalty.
- 62% of brands have managed to survive and engage their customers during the pandemic due to loyalty.
With a clear value of loyal customers, it makes sense to give reasons to the customers to come back and buy from the online store.
However, holding onto existing customers in the era of enormous choices is a hard nut to crack. Winning the game of loyalty is possible using effective, actionable strategies.
What Are The Strategies That Can Help Ecommerce Stores Win Loyalty?
eCommerce development with the right mix of technologies, tools, and techniques can help you seize a niche in the market.
Keeping a tight grip on the existing customers and retaining them for the long haul requires modern strategies to engineer Ecommerce customer loyalty.
- Personalized content and product recommendation
Integrating the personalization element in the eCommerce DNA gives the customers a feel and touch of buying from a store that cares about their interests and preferences.
For instance, addressing the customer by their name, making personalized recommendations based on purchase history or browsing patterns, and reminding them of the product they have added to the cart makes the customer buy from the store.
The study has shown that people are ready to pay more for personalized services and receive customized content in email communications. Amazon has nailed personalization in a way that 30% of customers prefer to research products on Amazon before buying them from elsewhere. It builds trust in the brand and nurtures loyalty for the long run.
Besides, sending the relevant information in the form of blogs, videos, or related content to the customers impress them.
• Offer special privileges
Rewarding loyalty is a great way to express gratitude to customers. In the eCommerce business, it works by providing extra discounts, coupon codes, free shipping, or sending freebies along with orders.
The customer delights satisfy the customer and make them refer the brand to friends and others. For instance, when customers receive a special voucher of getting 50% off on purchasing a product from the offline branded store, they get happy and surely visit the store to purchase something.
Providing the exclusive perks a few times a year entices and encourages the customers to shop. Being creative with special privileges increases the repeat business.
• Create an interesting loyalty program
Different loyalty programs are created to keep the customers engaged in shopping. The point-based loyalty program is the most popular program that makes loyal members spend more to gain loyalty points.
It’s very simple- the points get accumulated in the customers’ accounts as they shop and they can redeem them once they reach a limit.
This program is made interested by allowing the users to redeem the points in various ways such as redeeming points for gifts, free shipping, unlocking more reward options, easy access to customer support, donating to a charitable trust, and more.
• Ensure seamless communication
When you sell internationally, a range of customers prefers to interact with the brand through different channels, be it emails, push notifications, social channels, live chat, phone, and other online channels.
Emails are the oldest and are considered a great tool to keep up with customers. The modern customers looking for instant replies, the live chat or AI-bot interactions are better.
The push notification is a good way to re-engage with the existing customers when they are not browsing the store.
Sending notifications for sales or special events can help them revisit the store. Promoting the sales or discounts on social channels helps in gaining traction of the social media users.
Building a social eCommerce page to browse, interact and buy right on the social platform boost loyalty and sales.
• Take regular follow-ups but not desperately
Email marketing is a powerful weapon to sell more. But it’s underused and not optimally used by the marketers to convince the customers to repeat purchases. The emails are used as a welcome email, sending newsletters, informing about new arrivals, or a thank you email. It keeps reminding the customer that they have visited the store and shopped from it once upon a time.
In addition to the appreciation or congratulations emails, when customers are reminded of the products that they have added to the cart last time and they soon go out of stock, it creates the chances of rejuvenating their interest in the products again.
The email acts as a gentle reminder to not miss out on those products when sent in a week, it surely brings back the customers.
• Provide unmatched customer services
The customers have a series of queries and complaints from browsing and ordering to final product shipment. When the customer fails to perform to the customers’ expectations, it badly impacts the customer relationships. The customer when leaving the brand store with a negative impression, they never come back.
The Ecommerce store when manages all the inquiries coming from a single customer centrally and provides the best solution instantly by connecting the dots becomes effortless. Prioritize the customer service to convincingly turn negative reviews into positive ones.
• Ask for reviews and act on it
Two-way communication is necessary to keep the business products improving and remain aligned with customer expectations. Asking customers to provide their reviews for the products and services they received is the input that businesses obtain from the customers. It helps in knowing the aspects that need to be improved.
In the same vein, the businesses know the customers’ satisfaction level and when they respond proactively to the complaints, it plays a vital role in building customer loyalty.
For instance, when you show the customers how their reviews are put into action for product enhancements, it shows them that the brand cares about their feedback and is committed to implementing them. The improved experience retains your customers.
Wrapping it up
The ecommerce store can bath in billion dollars as revenue if they can engineer customer loyalty rightly.
Weaving the aforementioned tactics in the Ecommerce business can help retailers to grow sales and ROI boundlessly. Incorporate the tactics that fits best with your Ecommerce business.
Let’s do it!