Whatever your field of business, customer retention is incredibly important.

Most of us are aware that it can cost five times more to gain a new customer than to keep hold of an existing one.

Also, whilst there is only a 27% chance of a new customer buying again, this increases to 54% for an existing customer.

The latter is also likely to spend more. Customer retention is incredibly important if your business is to be successful long term within the retail and ecommerce industry.

Turning potential customers into long-term buyers

If we add Coronavirus into the mix, then we find ourselves facing unparalleled economic conditions and competition.

One of the keys to business survival is good customer service, which is vital to turn potential customers into long-term buyers.

Customer acquisition and retention should be the focus of all ecommerce marketing strategies.

The average ecommerce retailer spends 80% of their total marketing budget on ecommerce marketing strategy, but how can they be sure that they’re getting good results for their money?

You might think that you are safe as you already provide great customer service, but are you sure that this is enough to keep buyers coming back for more?

You need to do more, digging deep to understand the customer digital journey and simplifying it to reduce friction.

If you have an ecommerce website, then abandoned shopping trolleys are an indicator that something is wrong.

You need to take heed of some ecommerce SEO and website tips, improving your web design for ecommerce and web design for retail.

Digital customer care and customer loyalty

The crux of the matter hinges upon customer loyalty and how to inspire it. Get your website designer to help by improving the website user experience (UX) in the following ways:

  • Make the customer journey an enjoyable one, providing a seamless digital experience
  • Boost creativity by making the website aesthetically pleasing and memorable
  • Improve page speed optimisation. 1 second of load time over 3.5 seconds can lose up to 7% of conversions
  • Ensure that the checkout process is streamlined. Don’t include unwanted fields to complete such as fax numbers as this can frustrate the buyer, causing them to abandon their cart
  • Include plenty of calls to actions with a live chat facility and a clear ‘Contact Us’ page
  • Improved page layouts
  • Increase the overall functionality of the site

How to improve online retail websites

From the statistics above, you can appreciate why the repeat customer is so important. So, how do you keep this type of customer happy? Below are some helpful tips that you should discuss with your ecommerce website developer:

  • Get new customers to register – some customers might abandon the cart when forced to register, so always offer a ‘guest checkout’ option. However, if you can get the buyer to register, you can improve the customer experience with faster checkout and relevant marketing emails. Try offering a reward, such as exclusive offers and discounts.
  • Keep in touch via email – once your customer has consented to receive emails, take advantage of this. Send personalised messages that are relevant about new products and offers.
  • Offer incentives to return – such as discount codes that are time-limited. This will encourage them to come back.
  • Give something special – stand out from the crowd with unusual packaging, personal notes or a sprinkle of glitter or dried flower petals, depending upon what you sell. Use your imagination.
  • Don’t let that cart get away – make sure that your website alerts you when a cart is abandoned to that an email is automatically sent to the would-be customer. Add an incentive like money off or free delivery.
  • Get feedback – something simple like a pop-up star rating will suffice. More than this, or a survey, may annoy viewers. Add an incentive to catch attention. Use feedback to improve digital customer service.
  • Don’t forget social media – your ecommerce site should be linked to your social media pages. Make your business accessible and respond to queries quickly, using this to boost ecommerce customer service.
  • Post blogs – post relevant, high-quality blogs on your ecommerce site. When customers know they will provide value, they are more likely to read them and return for new posts. Content marketing can also be used to boost your ecommerce SEO results with Google so talk to a professional ecommerce SEO service provider.

Focus on retail and ecommerce website design

By ensuring that your ecommerce site is working its magic and making use of all of the above, plus SEO for ecommerce, customers will return to make repeat purchases, improving business success.

Talk to your ecommerce web design agency about ecommerce website design.

By putting in place some of the recommendations given above, you will build trust and brand loyalty, helping to strengthen customer relationships whilst turning one-time customers into long-term repeats.