The acts of finding, recruiting and converting new customers are top priorities for any goal-driven business. But that doesn’t mean that all your sales and marketing teams’ hard work ends once that initial purchase is made. There’s a not-so-little phenomenon called churn – also known as cancellation or abandonment, that you’re going to want to avoid at all costs. It costs five times more to acquire new customers than it does to hold on to existing ones. What’s more, a five percent raising of your customer retention rates can drive as much as a 25 – 95 percent increase in profits. That essentially means that the first purchase is really just the first step towards fostering long-term customer loyalty and retention.
Here are the top four ways you can keep your customers coming back and banish churn for good.
Build customer-brand relationships
Talk to your customers. Break past the barriers of the internet and digital shopping and engage with them as if they were standing next to you at a brick-and-mortar shop. Show your customers how much you value their loyalty and provide them with excellent, real-time service by being genuinely responsive to their needs – through market research, segmentation, personalization, periodic rewarding and more.
Offer multiple access and payment options
Today’s consumers are highly proficient in everything digital and carry their devices with them everywhere they go. As such, they expect to be able to access your brand’s website and digital store on any device from any location. Ensuring your site is mobile responsive and optimizing your accepted payment options to include major credit cards and payment apps make it easier for your customers to make a purchase – a key motivating factor in their recurrent patronage.
Make all usage and checkout processes crystal clear
Nobody likes to waste time and energy making their way through busy websites and complex checkout processes. Maybe they’ll convert once, for a highly desired item, but the odds of consumers returning for subsequent purchases are slim to none. Use minimal texts, precise wording, few checkout steps and easily understood CTAs. You can also include a progress indicator during the checkout process, to motivate consumers to complete. It goes without saying that any costs should be shown up front, so customers know exactly what they’re paying for.
Remarket, remarket, remarket!
Remarketing is a great way to follow up on your customer’s journey, reel them back in if they’ve abandoned a cart and continuously show your company’s value. In fact, if done correctly, remarketing is the most cost-effective advertising method for increasing customer engagement and retention. Send out remarketing emails to customers who’ve subscribed to your website and present them with highly-customized ads they can relate to and are likely to be interested in. You can even automate your mailer deployment, taking some of the load off of your retention-driven shoulders.
Want to improve customer retention and banish churn for good? Navonline can help you create your engaged online community – today.