Winning customers is no easy feat. Keeping them is even harder. In fact, the average eCommerce store loses 76% of its customers within a year. While some churn is expected and can even be beneficial to your business, it’s essential to avoid losing valuable customers prematurely.
No matter how much you optimise your marketing and sales funnel, if you don’t tackle customer retention strategies from the beginning, you may struggle with customer churn. Here are five ways to reduce churn as your business grows:
1. Increase customer lifetime value
Customer lifetime value is the amount of revenue you generate for your eCommerce store with each customer that spends with you. This value can be tough to measure as you are building your eCommerce business. However, a quick check of online sales metrics can help you assess the average amounts customers spend with you.
Once customers have had their purchase experience with your eCommerce store, trust has been built – it’s important to capitalise on that trust and keep churn numbers low. You want to make sure you can speak with customers and provide them with a great customer experience every time they visit your eCommerce store. Additionally, good data can help you choose the right strategies to maximise customer retention. This is where an eCommerce platform like Stor is helpful as it provides you with a bird’s eye view of your customers and their spending habits.
2. Provide excellent customer service
Possibly one of the best allies in securing loyal clients, excellent customer service has a crucial role in reducing churn. A positive interaction with a client goes a long way, but equally, poor customer service can damage your relationship more than any other factor. Even if they’re only having a minor problem, some customers may just close their browser tab before you’ve had a chance to help them.
Ensure that your customer service team is up-to-date on the latest trends in customer service software and processes. Make sure your colleagues have the training and know-how to provide outstanding customer service. Provide a quality return policy. Keep your company’s reputation in focus at all times by delivering memorable experiences to your customers.
3. Offer up-selling and cross-selling opportunities
Customers often shop online to save money. That said, if you aren’t offering up-selling and cross-selling opportunities, you could be losing out on a considerable chunk of the market. If you have a clearance section, don’t forget to take advantage of customer impulse purchases – you can make these work by offering an incentive for customers to buy the discounted products. When people buy the discount items, you’re giving them a reason to come back to your store. They’ll also be telling others about the discounts and can pass on those savings to their friends. Take advantage of inventory management tools – if your inventory is sitting on your shop floor, where it’s easy for customers to see it, you might be ready to convert it to cash quickly. It’s time to pick it up!
4. Give customers a reason to come back
While offering great products and customer service can be a powerful way to retain customers, sometimes your clients simply won’t return. To tackle this problem, start by looking for pressure points and customer complaints in your store and try to address them in the next version of your site. In addition, think about finding new ways to engage with customers, such as launching a new campaign or offering special promotions. Make sure you use a payment gateway that accepts all types of payments so that your customers can have a smooth experience no matter what they choose to pay with.
5. Get creative with your product offerings
Your customer acquisition funnel can never end, but it can begin to resemble a monster of your own creation. If customers only come to your store for one thing, and you start catering to them, what should you do next? Diversify your product offerings! Remember, customers, aren’t automatically going to buy everything you offer in your store. You’ll find them buying niche items or products that do just one thing but do it really well. And if you don’t create an offering that’s easy to shop for, how do you expect customers to remember you? On average, customers don’t recall anything about your product page until around 70% of their way through the conversion funnel. That means you’re only a few moments from closing a deal, so it’s imperative to make an impression as soon as possible.
