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As a business owner you are focusing on the pre-purchase and purchase phase for most of your time. It is understandable that you feel like when a product is sold, your main goal has been achieved. You might feel that there is no sense in contacting your customer anytime soon unless you contact your customers after a purchase in case of a problem or to answer one of their questions. What you are actually doing this way, is making customers forget about you.

Post-purchase support

As I already have mentioned in my previous blog post about the holiday season, it is extremely important to boost your customer service this time of the year. What most web store owners tend to forget, is that there is lots of room to contact customers after a sale has been made. In addition to your general customer service, it is good to start thinking of what you can improve in your post-purchase support.

Post-purchase support is communication between a company and a customer after a purchase is made. It concerns for example messages that are sent to confirm the order and the shipment of the purchased products, but also other messages to keep in contact with the customer. By using post-purchase support you are giving your customers as much attention before as after a purchase is made. Customers that do not receive any communication other than an automatic order confirmation are less likely to revisit a web store and make a repeat purchase. Spicing up your post-purchase support can have tremendous consequences for your sales.

Research has proven that top performing ecommerce companies get a substantial part of their revenue from newly acquired customers in the beginning of their business life. Over time they shift towards earning the majority of their revenue through repeat customers. After three years of existence, the majority of the revenue of the top e-commerce company comes from repeat customers.

Post-purchase customer service examples

Personalized emails
There are many ways in which you can take care of your customers after they make a purchase. Let me start with some simple and easy to use examples. Think of a personalized e-mail with purchase confirmation. Later on send a personalized email with shipping confirmation. Two important steps to start off with your post-purchase support.
You might wonder why these emails are supposed to be personal instead of fully automatically generated. According to research of Experian, a personalized e-mail is on average 26 percent more likely to be opened than a regular email. Moreover, opening rates of post-purchase emails are twice as high compared to regular emails.

Packaging
Unboxing can also make a huge difference in the way customers perceive your product and your brand. Adding a small gift or a thank you card to your customer’s order may trigger reciprocity and increase the chances of getting repeat customers.

Feedback
By asking customers to leave feedback, you get an opportunity to receive useful information on how customers perceive your product or customer service. On the top of that receiving customer reviews helps you to encourage future customers to make a purchase and it is valuable for your SEO.

Cross-sells
The moment after purchase is a great opportunity for cross-selling. Cross-selling is a technique that entices a customer to supplement his or her initial purchase with products that complement it. Are there no products to complement? Send a personalized email with products other customers bought in combination with the item this customer has purchased.

Tailored offers
One of the most personal and effective ways to communicate with customers post-purchase is to send them emails with personalized offers. Think of an email with a discount code to stimulate a repeat purchase. Other options are exclusive offers or the possibility to earn points in order to receive a discount.

Start today

Summing it all up, you have a higher possibility to grow your revenue when you have a strategy to keep your customers with you. To encourage your customers to stay with you, you have to cultivate your relationship with them. You can strengthen this relationship by making your post-purchase customer service as personal as possible. Nowadays, it is even possible to create personalized emails in tools like MailChimp, which are sent on a specific moment in the customer journey.

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