Providing your customers with a personalized experience is a proven way to increase your business and stay in the market for a long time. It helps build the trust and long-term relations. Whether you are running an online business or only offline, even if all it is primarily conducted over the phone, making feel your customers unique and appreciated will create a personal connection and return your customers again and again. In this article, we will provide you with several tips, which will demonstrate your customer service in the best way.
Tip 1: Always say ‘thank you’
A lot of users finds online shopping boring because there is no direct interaction between them and retailer. So, it is where after-selling marketing comes from. There are several ways to thank your customers:
- Send them an email
- Ask for the feedback. By the way, it is better to provide customers with the questions and different answers or ask to rate all parts of services rather than ask for a general review
- Send a small gift. For example, if you sell digital products, provide customers with additional free days of subscription or give them testing access to other products
Such activities help you to retain loyalty for repeat sales. The essential key is not trying to sell anything else on this step. Remember, it is just thankfulness.
How it influences the results?
According to Remarkety, email marketing platform, Thank you emails show high engagement rate:
- Open clicks – over 42%
- CTR – 18%
- Repeat purchase – 10%
Good practice
Look at this Thank you letter below. It has a plenty of good points:
- A lot of links to the site
- Recommendations
- Order details
- Contacts
Bad practice
Now, compare it with the image on the right. What’s wrong with that? There is no discounts, special offers, recommendations. Moreover, everything is written in a solid text.
Tip 2: Quickly response
According to a study, provided by a Forrester research, 45% of US consumers do not make a purchase, if their concerns are not responded quickly. A few years ago customers were agreed to send an email and wait for hours or even days. Today the situation is changed: they want an immediate solution for all queries.
To save your time, make an FAQ page with the most asked questions. 99design has a great FAQ page. They create an intuitively understandable navigation throughout the whole page. There are tabs for Client and Designer help. Moreover, you can select a subsection with general or more specialized questions and find answers on them more quickly.
Also, integrate with a live chat, where people can write in a real-time. Of course, do not forget about social media. Currently, it is the best tool for communicating.
Here are some useful tips:
- Address to buyers by name
- Do not make them wait for a long time, if you need something to clarify, then write that you ask and answer in a couple of minutes
Tip 3: Discounts
We all love something free. Scientists found that this word influences us at the physiological level. It stimulates the positive emotions and makes us feel the irrational excitement.
So, how can you use this knowledge to perceive customers feel unique? One of the ways is to create a personalized message, which will offer some additional free services, like free shipping or discounts. Another way is to track the customer lifecycle and their personal data. It can be:
- The year after he enters your loyalty club
- Birthday
- 10 purchase etc.
Use this to gift some extra bonuses or services.
This is an example of a special offer by GAP on the Birthday.
How it influences the results?
Use of Discount coupons in your email campaigns make a positive influence on the email campaigns performance:
- The open rate is increased by more than 15%
- Click rate is doubled
- The conversion rate is increased in 4 times
Tip 4: Adjust the trigger emails
Triggers emails often associate with higher engagement, CTR, customer retention and overall satisfaction. There are two types:
- Action-based emails
- Segment-based emails
For the first one, the formula is: if a user does this, send to him such type of email, if another action, then send another type. For reference, when users sign up – send him a welcome email, do not log in for a long time – a retention email.
Segment-based emails are used when users are segregated by a set of conditions. As an example, customers that use PRO and Free subscriptions.
Using this tip, you can provide consumers with the information they need, and even when they need it. In fact, companies, that send triggered emails has 133% better results in sending personal messages.
The possible flow can be illustrated as follow.
Suppose, that your system detected that someone has not made a purchase on your site for a long time. So, it automatically sends an email with the special offer to activate customer. The same situation appears when a consumer does not finish his order and interrupted it in the middle. For example, Frank & Oak sends a reminder email with free shipping and 25% off.
Tip 5: Form lists of your customers
People like to be a part of the special and limited community, they like to feel a sense of belonging. Segregate all your customers by the level of engaging in your business and communicate with them in different ways. You can:
- Organize a special meeting with all VIP clients to thank for their loyalty
- Send a video tour to your new coming
- Make an unexpected offer day for the customers, which make more than 20 purchases, etc.
For example, the Australian salon made a gift voucher with an additional 30% sale for their VIP clients.
Tip 6: Provide with the best UX experience
All people need different goods at different prices. To enable on your website a lot of easily tuned options will show that this site was developed with customer’s needs in the mind.
Think about such things:
- How will you display products?
- How will people filter these goods?
- How will people compare them?
- What are the additional features you can add? For example, the currency switcher.
If you are running a WordPress site, the WooBeWoo plugins will be the best friend in providing good UX experience. We have 5 different plugins:
Also, if you are planning to automate shipping services, we advise you to pay attention to WooCommerce Shipping Services by Pluginhive, a reliable and flexible solution with good support.
So, remember, that the customer service really matters. As reported McKinsey, 70% of purchase experiences are based on how the users feel themselves during buying products. It is not about advertising or promotional activities, it is about emotions.