With an abundance of international retailers accessible to anyone, customer experience has become increasingly important as a means to stand out from the crowd.
Happy, loyal customers are the backbone of sales success and also an invaluable marketing tool for shaping a truly customer-centric business. Wondering how can you ensure you’re providing a customer experience so good that your customers keep coming back for more?
Check out these tips!
Customer retention is the new black
Luring customers away from competitors to try your product or service can be expensive business. Not to mention, those actions can take the focus away from something more profitable and less time consuming - keeping your existing customers happy.
While the spotlight often falls on attracting new customers as a key marketing function, retention (holding onto current customers) not only saves on costs, but is a marketing tool in itself. According to the Harvard Business Review, new customer acquisition is anywhere from 5 to 25-times more expensive than retention. Why not let your happy, loyal customers spread the word - effectively doing the acquisition job for you?
The secret recipe to customer experience success in retail
Delivering a superior customer experience is the key to driving loyalty and retention. By staying ahead of current and future demands of return customers they’ll not only never have a reason to leave, but can act as advocates for your business. Customer advocates are invaluable - according to a study by Nielsen, 84 per cent of consumers found recommendations from friends and family to be the most trustworthy source of influence. People are also turning to online reviews of products or services for the voice of reason - if strangers are saying its good, then it has to be!
That means having the right team in place is vital in delivering a customer experience full of customer connection. Your team acts as the human face of your product or service and are responsible for developing these connections.
A simple tool like Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is a quick and easy way to gauge how loyal and engaged your employees are. These loyal, engaged employees are more likely to go the extra mile in delivering superior customer experience.
How to improve your customer retention
Your customers’ experience is woven into every interaction they have with your product or service. Whether it’s social media posts, visiting your website, in-store or physically using your product or service.
Showing your customers you genuinely care about them every step of the way is what really counts. Interacting with them beyond the sale builds strong relationships and allows you to check you’re on track with customer experience delivery.
Net Promoter Score (or NPS) is an easily implementable and simple tool which lets your customers be heard, but it doesn’t capture the ‘why’. Smart NPS technology like Customer Radar’s platform includes a comments functionality to enhance this data. It allows you to dig a bit deeper into a customer’s experience with your brand, giving you a clear picture of how your customer experience is faring and how likely you are to retain them as a customer.
Reacting quickly and appropriately to customer feedback (negative or positive) is crucial in showing your customers you genuinely care and allows you to shape your business in a truly customer-centric way.
Put very simply, great customer experience leads to customer loyalty and loyal customers are a retailer’s best friend.
