5 Killer Tips For Doubling Online Customer Retention And Lifetime Value
By Manish Chowdhary, CEO, GoECart
Given how difficult and expensive it is to acquire a customer, merchants should make retaining those buyers and fostering a relationship with them a priority. The good news is that technology has made it easier to take steps to dramatically increase customer retention, loyalty and lifetime value. Here are five tactics to consider.
1) Implement a points-based customer loyalty program.
Reward customers for shopping with you by giving them points for every purchase that they can redeem later for products. According to Forrester Consulting’s 2015 Omnichannel Customer Experience study, 64% of retailers reported that their loyalty/rewards programs were among the best ways to connect with consumers during their shopping experience.
There are numerous ways to set up a loyalty points program. For example, home décor and furnishings site Hayneedle.com lets its customers earn three points for every dollar spent; every 100 points equals $1. Customers can earn additional points by writing a product review for Hayneedle.com—and bonus points for including a photo or video with the review.
In addition to points for purchases, GoECart client SoccerPro.com offers members of its loyalty program enjoy a 10% discount on “practically everything” and free shipping on orders exceeding $65, among other benefits to joining (which is free). Ecommerce and OMS systems such as GoECart enable retailers and customers to easily manage loyalty programs and points and allow for redemption during the checkout process, both online and in-store.
2) Use all possible opportunities to connect with customers.
Promotional emails are great, but take the opportunity to make a connection (and a potential sale) with some of the more routine customer communications, such as back-in-stock email notifications and delivery-confirmation emails. Delivery confirmations, sent to customers as soon as the package is delivered—with your branding and messaging, not the shipping company’s—can be particularly effective for retailers in the gift category. GoECart client and the curator of the tastiest blend of Texas culture and food, Goode Company uses the built-in branded delivery confirmation emails to their customers within 15 minutes of FedEx package delivery to reassure their customers that the item reached the intended recipients on time.
3) Enable social login.
Let customers and visitors register or sign in to your site from any major social network such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube and Yahoo! Social login makes it faster and easier for users to register. This capability reduces frustration and the potential for abandonment during the login process and also clears the path to purchase.
Several popular ecommerce platforms offer this capability nowadays. The GoECart 360 all-in-one ecommerce suite, for example, is fully integrated with customer profile management platform Janrain to provide quick and simple social login capabilities using 25+ popular social networks to allow the online customers all the choice they would ever want.
4) Convert shoppers to subscribers.
Offer a subscription program discount for purchases that enables customer to replenish products on a regular basis. Companies like Amazon.com, Birchbox and Dollar Shave Club have been disrupting retail in recent years using this business model.
Subscription programs offer convenience and savings for the customer for consumable items, and provide a steady stream of sales to the retailer. Our client 11th Street Coffee is developing and testing an Amazon-like subscribe-and-save module for coffee subscriptions.
Most ecommerce platforms rely on third party integration to offer such functionality to their customers. GoECart however offers this module native as part of its unified commerce platform which cuts out the complexity for both merchants and end-shoppers. For instance, GoECart’s Ecommerce Subscription Module lets customers subscribe right from the product page and manage their subscriptions from the same account profile and checkout as their other one-time purchases. Subscription programs are a convenience and savings for the customer and provide a steady stream of sales to the retailer.
5) Be a true omnichannel merchant. No faux omnichannel.
Make it easy for your customers to shop and purchase goods through whichever sales channels they prefer by being present in various marketplaces, brick-and-mortar stores, websites and so on. Participate in comparison-shopping engines so that you show up on multiple channels and can be wherever your customer is.
This past holiday season, GoECart powered SoccerPro.com was part of an innovative shopping experience exclusively through the Xbox One. The new Xbox One Mall, created by Von Bismark along with Powa, provides XBox users with a simple one-click purchase process and the ability to virtually try on apparel before they buy. The virtual mall lets SoccerPro.com connect with soccer fans and makes it easy for them to buy gear with a single click.
The ForresterOmnichannel Customer Experience report notes that the pace of retail has changed as more-demanding consumers rely on new devices to enhance their shopping experience. Retailers must provide compelling and integrated strategies to engage and retain consumers in the omnichannel retail landscape.