Grow Your eCommerce Revenue with Customer Retention Strategies

Do you know that retaining 5% of customers can increase your revenue by up to 25%?

Your brand is all set to make your existing customers purchase again. All you need is a push to motivate them to do so. Brand trust, customer satisfaction, and relevant efforts can help you achieve that.

Let’s jump to this blog and find ways to implement eCommerce customer retention strategies for your business.

What is customer retention

Customer retention is the ability of your business to bring customers back for repeat purchases.

In eCommerce, it’s about building enough trust and value that buyers choose you over competitors.

It’s the opposite of customer churn when customers stop buying.

Compared to loyalty, retention means returning to the brand for the same reasons whereas customer loyalty involves emotionally sticking to a brand. In short, loyalty is why and retention is what.

So, how do you think customer retention is working for your brand? Let’s go through the numeric calculation.

Understanding the customer retention rate

Here is how you can calculate your brand’s customer retention rate(CRR):

Subtract the acquired number of customers (during the given period) from the number of customers at the ending period. Now, divide that by the number of customers at the start point, and finally, multiply by 100: that’s your CRR.

Here is a demo calculator form you can easily create using Fluent form to calculate the retention rate.

Why retention matters in eCommerce

Which one is easy?

Convincing a new customer while competing with many brands or making the already convinced customer return?

Retention saves time, cuts costs, and drives profits.

Here, you will find some strategic steps to great customer retention. 

Increased average order value

The average order value is how much on average a customer spends per order.

Suppose a customer spends $150 on three orders: $40, $60, and $50. The total amount of the 3 orders is $150. So, the average is 150 divided by 3 = $50.

When customers return, it results in more purchases. For example, let’s say you have an electronic gadget brand. A customer might first buy a watch, then headphones, and then a laptop. Every time the customer returns, they are increasing your average order value per customer.

Improved customer lifetime value

Customer lifetime value is a metric that assesses the total amount of revenue a business can expect from a customer throughout their interaction and trust with the brand.

Retained customers buy more often, increasing their lifetime worth.

Lower churn rate

Churn means when a customer leaves Churn rate is the percentage of customers who leave on a certain period. It is the reverse of customer retention. A high retention rate means fewer customers leave, stabilizing your revenue.

Lower customer acquisition cost

Retaining existing customers doesn’t need the marketing approaches you might need to acquire new customers. You don’t need to spend big budgets on brand awareness because your old customers already know your brand.

Increased profit margin

A good position in customer retention lowers the cost of customer acquisition, provides positive feedback, and decreases the abandoned cart rate, which eventually increases the profit margin.

Enhanced brand trust

Brand trust is not a problem-solving business strategy that can be earned at once. Make your customers feel that your brand is a one-stop solution. Trust grows when it shows how you treat your customers. 

When the customers keep getting back to your store, chances increase to make them loyal by providing high-end customer support, personalized shopping experience, and at the top: expected product and service quality.

Consistent positive experiences build trust, encouraging loyalty and referrals.

Competitive advantage

Your competitors are always ready to steal your customers taking advantage of your slightest mistakes. That’s why you need to stay one step ahead of them taking care of your customers.

Loyal customers stick with you, even when competitors try to lure them away.

Proven customer retention strategies for eCommerce

Ensuring customer retention is not a small task, since customer behavior, seasonal marketing, competitors’ strategies, etc influence customer retention rate and the probable strategies.

Turn one-time buyers into repeat customers with these tactics:

Offer rewards for customer loyalty

Repeat purchasers are always special, and they should feel special. That’s where rewards connect the loyal customers instantly. Personalized rewards hook customers and encourage repeat purchases.

Give points per customer’s purchase, redeemable for discounts or freebies. Add personal touches like birthday offers to your most returning customers.

Implement a personalized shopping experience

The more you know about your customers, the better you can engage them. Personalized shopping experience makes the shoppers feel more welcome and the store seems to be more ready for meeting individual needs.

Apply the ways to implement eCommerce personalization to offer your customers a personalized shopping experience. Use customer purchase history to recommend products or send tailored emails. This type of relevance keeps customers engaged with your brand.

Provide fast delivery

Amazon built huge trust in the market by providing same-day delivery. You can’t do that as a small business but offer quick shipping options and tracking if possible. Timely delivery builds trust.

Achieve reliance through pricing consistency

Whether it’s competitive pricing, discount pricing, or bundle pricing, your customers need to be assured that your brand has consistency through it all. Avoid confusing price swings.

Clear and fair pricing influences the buyers to keep repurchasing. 

Organize post-purchase engagement campaigns

Post-purchase engagement helps you retain your customers and helps you motivate them to buy again when they intend to buy.

Here are a few ways you can engage customers who have purchased from your store previously:

• Send thank you emails
• Ask for customer feedback with a survey form
• Collect user-generated content like reviews, social posts, etc
• celebrate purchase anniversaries with discounts
• Personalized discounts based on interest
• Run retargeting ads if you run paid ad campaigns

Ensure a simple refund and return policy

Not every time your products will fulfill a customer’s expectation. Sometimes it’s the size issue, sometimes damage or even customers may change their mind.

Your refund and return policy should follow:

• Keep the refund and return policy clear and concise
• Promptly respond when customer demands refund/return
• Keep the procedure as simple as the purchase is

Frequently gather and analyze feedback 

One subtle issue with your product can make your customers ignore hundreds of good qualities unless you hear them fast and provide solutions.

Listen to your customers. Learn about their pain points. Whether it’s the chatbot or the customer satisfaction feedback form, collect detailed feedback from your customers. 

Help customers create user-generated content

The unique value proposition and user benefits highly encourage your customers to shout out for your brand.

Make an idea campaign and provide them with a good scenario. Collect user-generated content through tools like Fluent Forms. Appreciate and promote the content users create.

Build an extraordinary customer support system

Your customers should be able to reach out to you without any hassle. Offer live chat, email, or phone support with fast, friendly responses. Train your customer support agents to manage customers’ problems with empathy.

You can use tools like Fluent Forms & Fluent Support to offer great customer support to the customer. Watch the video:

Build a customer community

Create a forum or social group for customers to connect and share tips. Train your support agents to initiate discussions and ease negative comments.

• Find out and solve users’ problem
• Add people who can provide useful information
• Curate authentic reviews
• Dive in when confusion arrives

Establish emotional connection

Building an emotional connection with the customers by sharing your brand story and highlighting customer success to deepen ties. Brands are made by people, show that through your content and customer interactions. 

A few steps help you make an emotional connection with your customers as a brand.

• Create eccentric storytelling
• Feature wellness content
• Highlight special days
• Showcases use-cases rather than features

Track customer behavior using CRM

A CRM is the prime source to track customers’ interests and preferences while communicating seamlessly. You can easily segment customers into a variety of subgroups and experiment strategies. 

Customer Relationship Management will help your business keep the customers engaged and optimize the conversion rate.

Provide value to customers on social media

Customer-centric approaches on your social media channels enhance engagement and broaden your brand value. Use your social channels to solve users’ daily problems and encourage thought-sharing. Top-end social media presentation is also a scope for 24/7 marketing.

• Share user-generated content
• Respond to comments
• Accept suggestions from the customers

Moving forward

From rewards to fast shipping, these eCommerce customer retention tactics can turn your one-time customers into lifelong fans. Start small, pick one or two tactics, test them, and track your customer retention rate. Watch your repeat purchases and revenue grow.