Digitization has helped many stores establish themselves in the eCommerce industry. It gives them a medium through which they can target a wider audience and generate more leads. But the real backbone of any eCommerce store is its customer service.
Any business in the eCommerce industry runs only because of their customers. Creating a personalized customer shopping experience and delivering prompt customer service helps gain customer loyalty, thereby growing the business.
What is Customer Loyalty? Why is it Important?
As a business, you can generate and develop customer loyalty when your customers choose your company consistently over any other company in the market. One of the most important ways of generating this customer loyalty is by delivering exceptional customer service.
In a survey conducted by Microsoft, a massive 96% of the customers said that good customer service is an important factor that they consider when establishing their loyalty towards a brand.
The importance of customer loyalty is intertwined with every aspect of your business. Good customer service will lead to customer loyalty. While this leads to customer retention, it also has other benefits to your business.
- Positive word of mouth from loyal customers leads to more customer engagement and sales – 90% of customers buy a product if the reviews are positive.
- Lower operations cost in customer acquisition – Attracting new customers is 6-7 times more expensive than retaining current ones.
- Increased sales – 5% increase in customer retention generates 25% more profit.
On the flip side, poor customer service can be harmful to your business. 56% of customers stop doing business with a brand if they are dissatisfied with the customer service.
Due to poor customer service, customers might not recommend your business to others and might leave your business and move to your competitors instead.
Strategies to Speed Up Business Growth and Increase Loyalty
Previously, customer service was only linked to the customer support team providing viable solutions to the customer’s queries and problems. However, the current customer service and demand go far beyond just customer support.
Efficient, reliable, and high-quality customer service along with digitization and modern-day technology can speed up business growth and build customer loyalty.
Given below are different strategies, tips, and tricks that you can follow to drive your business growth and customer loyalty from efficient customer service.
Reward and Incentivize
The best way of improving a customer’s loyalty to your brand is by rewarding them with things that will make them come back and buy more. There are numerous ways through which you can reward your customer’s engagement with your business –
- Offer discounts on certain products.
- Offer free shipping above a specified bill amount.
- Provide limited-time sales during specific periods or seasons.
- Offer reward points to your customers every time they make a purchase. Customers can then collect and redeem these points by buying another product.
These approaches are a great way of improving a customer’s experience with your eCommerce store.
Referral programs are another commonly used yet effective approach. By rewarding both the current as well as the new customers, you can achieve customer acquisition and customer retention at the same time.
Constant and Clear Communication
One thing that all customers like is constant and clear communication. When a customer makes a purchase with your eCommerce store, you must provide clear and constant updates on their transaction and shipping. Updates must include points like –
- When you receive the order summary
- When the product is packed and ready to be shipped
- When the package is in transit
- When the package arrives at the customer’s location
Real-time updates can go a long way in increasing a customer’s loyalty towards your business.
Personalize Customer Experience
Make your customer feel like their presence in your eCommerce store is appreciated and noticed by you. Begin by focussing on simple things like greeting the logged-in customers by their name or displaying a ‘thank you’ message when they purchase with you.
Personalize the customer’s shopping experience by being there at all the major touchpoints of your store.
One way of doing so is by displaying relevant product recommendations in which your customer might be interested.
Another method may include adding a live chatting feature to your store that gives instant solutions to customer problems and lets them explore and learn all about your products.
Cross-Channel Availability
Cross-channel availability is another crucial step that you should take to build customer loyalty and customer service. Build and develop an efficient and user-friendly interface that would work on all devices, from mobiles to desktops.
Similarly, apart from providing customer support only through calls, make yourself available on other platforms like social media, email, live chats, etc. As 57% of the customers would prefer using such mediums of communication rather than the traditional call support, this is a necessary step.
This way, your customer can contact you through the channel they prefer.
Feedback
The same Microsoft survey, as mentioned earlier, also found that 77% of the customers have a more favorable view of a brand when they ask for feedback.
Asking for feedback helps you gain meaningful insights into what the customer feels about your business and product. With these points from the customer, you can improve your brand, product, marketing approach, and a whole lot more.
Conclusion
“Every contact we have with a customer influences whether or not they’ll come back. We have to be great every time, or we’ll lose them.” – Kevin Stirtz, author of ‘More Loyal Customers.’
Building customer loyalty is not a one-time job. You must ensure that you always stay at it consistently. With thorough and efficient customer service, you will be able to create more loyal and happy customers, which will effectively improve your overall business.
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