How to show your customers some love and improve your customer retention.

Gaining a new customer is five times more expensive than maintaining an existing consumer. Loyalty and retention are always important. But with an unclear economy, it’s more critical than ever. 

So how can you make your customer fall in love with your business? 

It’s simple. Just keep the customer top of mind in every aspect of your company. Ensure their processes are straightforward and easy, maintain constant communication, foster a connection, and grow from their feedback. 

In par with the trends spend the year enhancing your business for your customers so they’ll return the love with their loyalty. 

This is how;

Improving user experience 

Streamlining the purchase process

Connecting with customers through social media

Providing excellent customer service 

Collecting and growing from feedback

Give customers a good user experience

Just as you’d keep your store clean and organized for customers, you need to do the same for your website. User experience can make or break a website and your e-commerce store. 

It’s worthwhile to assess your website for various user experience aspects, including:

Usability 

Accessibility 

Value 

Usefulness 

Improvements you make to your website can vary from choosing clearer fonts and colors to improving website speed and search. 

Learn from websites you love and what makes them work so well. See where your website can be more dynamic for your customer with new plugins or design features. 

One essential factor is navigation. Keep your website simple so customers know where to find everything they need. Plus, simplicity helps customers make decisions. 

Make purchasing easy and desirable. s

Most people dislike clicking through multiple pages and prompts to make a purchase. The more obstacles you put in the way of making the sale, the more times a customer has a chance to reconsider. 

Ensure your checkout process is quick and easy. Consider instituting: 

One-page checkout 

Free deliveries

Multiple payment options 

Mobile-friendly checkout 

Go a step further and make shopping even more attractive to customers with discounts or promotions. A customer that gets a deal today might be more inclined to purchase something for full price later. 

Also, consider offering a loyalty program with perks to encourage customers to keep coming back. 

Connect with customers on social media pages.

Target audience research is a cornerstone of business. You should know the people you’re selling to and how your business can help them. But go further than just data points and try to connect with customers. An easy way to do that is via social media. 

Spotlight your customers on social media by sharing their stories, testimonials, or user-generated content. Not only does this enhance your social media, but it makes customers feel appreciated. 

Provide high-quality customer service.

After a rocky 2020 (Covid 19 and its effects on the economy), customer service needs to be prioritized. Customers want to know they can trust a company to follow through on their needs. Providing top-notch customer service to soothe consumer concerns or answer questions will help build that trust with customers.

Every business’s customer service will need to look different, depending on the products and services you sell. 

See where your pain points are for your consumer. Are you getting several disgruntled consumer calls after hours? Does your service team need more customer relations training? Would you benefit from 24/7 support? 

Depending on your answers, you can hire more staff, provide more training, or look into technical solutions.

Grow from customer feedback

If you want to learn how to serve your customers better, then ask them. Gather feedback through surveys, social media, or through in-person interactions. Review your customer service comments and see where your business could be doing better. 

The key to gathering feedback is to implement the changes that make sense for your business. Share any changes you make on your social media to show consumers you take their suggestions seriously. Plus, this encourages more people to engage with your company because they know you’ll value their responses. 

Since repeat customers are easier to keep than acquiring new buyers, it’s worth taking the time to improve your practices so consumers are inclined to stay. Give your customers the star treatment by upgrading the things that matter most to them. 

Ensuring an excellent user experience, simplifying purchasing, connecting on social media, offering quality customer service, and proactively listening to feedback are just some of the ways to showcase customer appreciation. 

Every improvement you make for your customers positively impacts your business in the long run. You’ll also feel confident that your audience appreciates your company.

Desiree Johnson

February 11, 2021