10 Ways To Retain Customers With an Outstanding Post-Purchase Experience

October 4, 2024
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According to Shopify's President, this BFCM, Shopify merchants shattered records. They did $7.5 billion in sales on Shopify in just 4 days, and a historic 52 million consumers purchased from a Shopify merchant. Sales peaked at $3.5 million per minute on Black Friday at 12:01 pm EST and the average cart price hit $102.10 USD Globally for the weekend. Every year we watch our merchants reach new heights - it's incredibly inspiring and humbling to build a platform that makes entrepreneurship more accessible for millions of entrepreneurs.

  • 75% of online purchases are happening on mobile vs 25% on desktop

  • Consumers looking to spend on quality > quantity

  • Apparel, Cosmetics, and Home & Garden categories are trending

The million dollar question is, how do we make these customers buy more? To get into actionable tips, we need to understand the Psychology of Customer Purchase Journey first.

The evolution of the purchase journey

The purchase journey of your eCommerce site is extremely critical in deciding the success of your sales. With evolving consumer needs, the purchase funnel has also evolved with the addition of an extra segment of after-purchase experience to it. And, this post-purchase customer journey includes a lot of things but later on this. 

Customer Purchase Journey Shopify

The evolved version of the purchase cycle has five stages which are:

a) Awareness

b) Consideration

c) Research 

d) Purchase 

e) Post-purchase experience 

Now, what is post-purchase experience? 

Everything that happens after a customer clicks "buy" is referred to as the post-purchase experience. Confirmation emails, shipment speed, delivery, packing, the quality of your items, return convenience, post-purchase support, and more are all covered in the post-purchase customer experience.

Why should you optimize your post-purchase experience?

Retailers must keep in mind that the customer’s purchase journey does not end when the buyer clicks on the buy button, instead, it begins right there. There is a time gap in the customer experience between the time the order is placed and the time the products are delivered to them. You must optimize these purchase experiences appropriately so that your customers stay delighted even after buying from you. Here’s why you need to optimize your post-purchase experience for the big sale day. 

1. Make an impression on your new customers

As per socital, lead acquisition can increase by as much as 226% during Black Friday. The number of customers buying from your store gets huge during the biggest sales day of the year -  Black Friday. This is your perfect chance to offer unforgettable post-purchase satisfaction corresponding to the post-purchase behavior of all the new customers so that they keep coming back for you.

2. Build lifelong customer relationships

The post-purchase marketing gives the brand the chance to maintain a relationship with its customers. As per support, the post-purchase experience makes the brand memorable for 40% of its customers.

3. Higher customer Retention

The post-purchase support may make or break your brand's reputation. You should include easy order tracking, technical support, and return and refund options. Customers' opinions of your business and whether or not they decide to make a return are influenced by how effective your post-sale customer journey is.

Let’s delve deeper into how you can optimize your post-purchase communication.

How to offer a post-purchase experience that blows away your customers?

Don’t get overwhelmed if you are unsure about how you can improve your post-sale customer journey. If you feel you're too late for implementing some of these, get started today. It's always a great time to start ;) 

1. Offer quality products 

The first step toward having happy customers starts at the very beginning of your product’s lifecycle. Make sure you're beginning with a high-quality product. It may seem like a simple step, but whether you can deliver on your first promises will determine the basis of your post-sale customer journey success.

THE HAUL OF FAME: Most Popular Products Sold On Nykaa This Year

2. Use the right packaging

You should use the appropriate packaging while sending your products over to your customers. You must invest in bubble wrap or environment-friendly paper packing if you are delivering glass products or products that are fragile. The aim is to make sure that your products don’t get damaged in transit. 

How to Create Great Product Packaging Design | Blush Blog

Damaged products make for a bad customer experience, take up the support staff resources, necessitating the sending of replacements, and leave a bad impression on the customer. This costs you time, money and goodwill. The ideal packaging should be brand-specific, and protective, and keep products anonymous. 

You could also customize your packaging for the holiday season as well to make your customers memorize your brand for special packaging included in the after-purchase experience. 

3. Provide more than one shipping options

You may offer free shipping on the cart value of $xx to increase your order value. You may also offer an option for them to choose for faster delivery if they want. 

If your customers prefer affordability, then they might not go for this but people with an urgency to receive the order might opt-in driving extra revenue for your business. By offering a variety of shipping alternatives, you help to improve the post-purchase customer experience by establishing expectations around delivery timing.

For example, Amazon offers free 2-day delivery to its prime members. Moreover, it also gives additional discounts to its members making people more inclined towards buying their membership. 

4. Make sure your delivery is fast and on-time

The Keys to 'Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store' - Practical Ecommerce

As per Ipsos, 85% of online shoppers stated that a bad delivery experience would prevent them from placing another order with that online merchant. 

You definitely don't want dissatisfied customers, so make sure you deliver their orders quickly and on time. If they had opted for in-store pickup, make sure their order is ready much before the pickup. To elevate their post-purchase satisfaction in terms of delivery and in-store pickup, make sure your orders are ready and delivered on time, every time. Zapiet is a great tool to offer unbeatable in-store pickup and local deliveries.

Late deliveries result in negative reviews from dissatisfied customers leading to negative word-of-mouth marketing of your brand. To avoid this, ensuring timely deliveries is important. 

5. Make it seamless with a mobile app

Like you saw above, 75% of online purchases are happening on mobile vs 25% on desktop. It's only fair to give these 75% people a better way to shop.

Mobile apps offer convenient and seamless post-purchase communication. Having a mobile app for your store can assist you in multiple ways. Push notifications are superior to email and other customer communication channels. Push notifications are sent directly to the users, much like an SMS text message, and you dont have to spend $$$ for SMS. This ensures that they will notice it when they check their phone or tablet the next time.

You could send in-app push notifications related to delivery, latest offers and feedback. Also, it is easy for your customers to contact you via app in just a few taps. You could also send notifications to your customers based on their buying history thereby personalizing the post-purchase communication you have with your customers. Read more about why you need a mobile app for your eCommerce store. 

If your eCommerce store is powered by Shopify, then Shop2App is loaded with features making it the best choice to turn your store into a mobile app. 

6. Keep your buyers informed with post-purchase communication

12 Thank You Email Templates & Examples for Purchases & Orders

Make sure you communicate each and everything related to the order of your customer via email, SMS or push notifications. Check out this blog to learn about the types of notifications you can send to your customers. An affordable and effective approach to keeping in touch with your customers even after purchase is to use emails, push notifications and SMS and streamline your post-purchase customer experience. 

You may send push notifications using the Shop2app app builder or PushOwl to keep your customers engaged and boost customer retention. Omnisnd is great for sending emails making the process easier and hassle-free. 

Here are the types of emails, notifications and SMS, you could send out for your post-purchase communication. 

a) Purchase: Let your customers know that they have placed an order by sending an order summary, payment information, and shipping and delivery confirmation right after the order is placed. 

b) Shipping-related: Share all the shipping-related information including tracking details, and estimated date of arrival with your buyers so that they don’t have to ask for it. Checkout GoMalomo.com to create On Brand Tracking Pages

d) Feedback-related: Send out notifications asking for their feedback and reviews.

 

e) Product education: Share how-to content to your customers for the product they have purchased to retain engagement. 

f) Product recommendations: Send out product recommendations similar to the products they have bought to boost your sales. Use the Rebuy app to offer recommendations for upselling and cross-selling your products. 

g) Promotions/Offers/Loyalty programs: Offer discounts on their next purchase, send the latest promotional deals, invite them to join your loyalty program and send reminder emails when their preferred product is back in stock. 

Make sure you time your communication well so that there are no delays and your customers don’t have to reach out to you for every detail. 

7. Offer easy returns 

Offer your customers the convenience of buying from you. Returns are unavoidable in eCommerce. If your customer isn’t liking a product be it because of fit, size, or color, don’t disappoint them by further making it difficult to return the item. 

Magento 2 Easy Returns Manager Extension - WebPanda

You may give them free returns and enough windows to try out the products and return them. Making returns simple and hassle-free may go a long way toward delivering a positive after purchase experience and even help to eliminate any doubts about placing another order with you. Make sure you offer store credit or refund for the items returned. 

A clear returns policy is also important to convert more leads and optimize your post-purchase experiences.

8. Encourage customers to leave reviews

Reviews not only serve to improve your post-purchase experiences but also give future consumers social proof of your business. Why? Asking for feedback shows that you value your customers’ opinions and that you're constantly looking for ways to make your services better for them. 

Paul Rogers - The Definitive Guide to eCommerce Product Reviews

Furthermore, negative reviews also help you to focus on the things your customers are dissatisfied with. Provide a number of platforms for your customer to leave reviews so that they can share their review in a hassle-free manner. You may deploy Loox, Judge.me, Okendo to gather reviews/feedback for your Shopify store and improve your services based on their feedback.

9. Provide seamless customer service 

Omni-channel customer service not only helps close more deals but also creates a fantastic post-purchase experience. Customers should have several ways to get in touch with your team, including social media, email, SMS, and instant messaging services like WhatsApp or Viber. To run SMS campaigns for your Shopify store, use tools like Attentive, Emotive and make the most of this channel. 

WhatsApp Business for Ecommerce

Additionally, make sure that your customer support replies are quick, apt, and helpful. Consistent customer service ensures post-purchase satisfaction of your customers. Use tools like Reamaze, Limechat, and Gorgias to offer excellent customer support and build long-term customer relationships for your Shopify store.  Subscriptions are great to offer convenience and customization to your customers. Use Recharge to create subscription offerings on your Shopify store so that they don't have to place orders for the same items again and again. 

10. Stay in touch 

Use multiple channels to stay in touch and engage with your customers even after the sale. This is also great for user-generated content which you can use for post purchase marketing and growing your brand. Learn in this blog how user-generated content can help you in retaining your customers. 

The Perks Of A Great Loyalty Program

You may also acknowledge the reviews/efforts of your customers and keep them informed about new products and promotions by leveraging social media, loyalty programs, and email newsletters. Use popular loyalty app platforms like Loyalty Lion, Smile to build a reward program for your Shopify store. 

Selling gift cards is also a way to boost the revenues of your Shopify store and can be done using a tool like Govalo. To engage with your customers after purchase, you may also use tools like Octane to create quizzes and build personal relationships with them.

It’s a wrap (but not for your customers)

It’s a wrap for this article but your post-purchase experience shouldn’t wrap up your customer journey instead it should welcome brand-new lifelong customers.

It's more important than ever for businesses to focus on post-purchase support to win customer loyalty and encourage repeat purchases as consumer choices continue to expand and the digital world divides the consumer experience. You can convert first-time purchasers into repeat customers by focusing on providing excellent customer care, engaging in post-purchase communication, and valuable educational content. 

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