There’s nothing worse than thinking about your customer base and realizing that you’re constantly losing them. But, as a business owner, it can be challenging to keep customers engaged and coming back for more.

We’ve compiled some tips to help you engage with your customers on an ongoing basis, so they’ll never forget who helped make their day brighter!

What Is Customer Retention?

Customer retention is a goal that online business owners should constantly be working towards. The whole point of building your web store and offering products and services to customers is because you want them to keep coming back for more.

When you think about it, customer retention makes sense: why go through the time and effort of attracting new customers if they’re not going to be staying with you for more than a few months?

Instead, focus on building relationships with your customers. The idea is that they’ll come back again and again because they know who you are and like the way you do business.

Why is customer retention important?

Customers who are happy with you will stick around. That’s just how it works – it becomes more convenient for them to come back to you than look for a new supplier.

Regular customers are important because they’re one of the best tools you have at your disposal when growing your store. They give you great referrals, they provide you with valuable feedback, and they behave as brand ambassadors.

What’s the catch?

It sounds like a dream that all business owners want: build a loyal customer base and gain access to an army of people who will help promote your products and services. However, it’s not entirely that simple. Customer retention is harder than attracting new customers.

Possible reasons for abandoning your store

Your customers can leave you for all sorts of reasons. Maybe they found another business that offers better products or has a more convenient range of services to offer.

Perhaps your prices are too steep, and the value doesn’t justify the expense. Customers may find similar products on sale at places like Amazon or even get them cheaper on Alibaba if they buy in bulk.

Here are a few other things that your customers could be unhappy about:

For example, if products take too long to be delivered, or there’s no tracking information available, it can leave customers feeling frustrated and impatient. If this is the case, they may try to use a delivery service like Amazon Prime for their future purchases since they know that the process will be quick and reliable.

Your refund and return policy may not be to your customer’s liking either: if they don’t feel confident about your store’s ability to provide a safe and easy experience, they won’t come back. In addition, the idea of giving away money for something that hasn’t been received could cause them to look for other stores instead.

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Why are customers important?

To summarize, your customers are an invaluable resource for feedback, recommendations, and promotion.

When you make them happy through great products, competitive prices, fast shipping times or amazing service, they’re going to tell everyone they know about their positive experiences with your store. That’s how great customer retention can increase your online store’s traffic and popularity!

Tips To Improve Customer Retention in Your Wix Store

Now that you know why customer retention is important, let’s look at some customer retention strategies!

1. Thank them for the purchase

When a customer purchases in your store, make sure to thank them for it. You could email or call them, and a simple message of gratitude can go a long way in establishing yourself as an attentive business owner who cares about their customers’ needs.

2. Exceeding Customer Expectations

Customers usually have some idea of what they’re going to get when they make a purchase.

Whether through their research before the sale, experiences with previous suppliers, or just wild guesses at what you could offer them, they have some idea of what to expect.

So, if you can exceed their expectations by giving them more than what they thought they would get, you’re onto a good thing. This makes them happy, and they’re more likely to remember your business in the future.

3. Delivering on time

This is one of the biggest causes of customer dissatisfaction: items or services that are promised but never delivered or arrive late. If this happens, customers may become frustrated with you and begin to look elsewhere.

Its good practice to keep your customers informed about their order through email updates to plan for any deadlines or events coming up.

4. Letting the customer decide

One of the greatest things you can do as a business owner is to let your customers decide how to use your products or services.

For example, if you’re offering custom-made items, allow them to provide their measurements and preferred designs for the finished product: this will not only save you time in making and shipping out orders, but they’ll appreciate that you allowed them some input into the process too.

5. Build Customer Loyalty

You can use social media channels or email marketing to remind customers when they can return or introduce them to new products in the same range that they may enjoy.

This helps build customer loyalty by creating an ongoing relationship between you and your customers, giving you more opportunities to increase sales down the line.

6. Utilize A Marketing Strategy

Ensure you’re following up on leads that come to your site; this can be through retargeting or having a sale after the customer has initially purchased something.

This is common practice in other industries, where customers are brought back after giving initial contact information. But it’s also an effective way of retaining customers since many will come back when they know you’re offering discounts or promotions.

7. Be there to Repeat Customers

Another great way to increase customer retention is to give them a reason to come back.

Whether it’s through introducing new products, offering discounts for their second purchase, or even sending out gift coupons on special days like anniversaries, birthdays and weddings, you want to be there for your repeat customers during every major life event.

8. Provide Excellent Customer Service

This is more than just responding to emails and phone calls promptly; it’s about making sure that your customer service team is trained to be both knowledgeable and capable of resolving any problems that come up.

If you can’t manage this yourself, you should consider hiring an external consultant for better support.

9. Improving The Customer Experience Via Marketing

There are several ways to utilize marketing strategies to increase customer retention, but one of the easiest is through email marketing. Once you have a list of customers who have purchased from you before, they’ll probably be more receptive to your advertising offers if displayed in an automated fashion via email campaigns.

10. Keep Customers Updated

Keeping your customers up to date with news about their orders is important for reducing anxiety and increased customer retention.

You can use social media channels or email marketing to let them know about the status of their purchase or even provide them with discounts if they choose to wait a little longer before receiving their order.

11. Using a Loyalty Program

Customer retention is a lot easier with a loyalty program in place, as they’re encouraged to keep coming back for more if they know there’s something in it for them.

Depending on the type of business you run, you can provide discounts or exclusive promotions that customers receive through a loyalty card.

12. Knowing when to say NO

As a business owner, you mustn’t over-extend yourself and risk affecting the quality of the goods or services you provide.

Be realistic with your goals and make sure you stick with them to avoid any mistakes with customer retention later on down the line.

How Not To Treat Your Customers

It’s always a good idea to stay one step ahead to retain your customers in your online store, so it’s important to never take them for granted. Now, this doesn’t mean you have to provide them with free stuff every day of the week, but here are some ways that you shouldn’t treat your existing customers:

1. Using Poor Customer Service

This is one of the biggest mistakes you could make since it gives your customers negative experiences, which may affect their decisions to come back.

Even if you offer discounts or other incentives for bringing them back after having a bad experience, it doesn’t work if you can’t resolve past problems with poor customer service.

2. Using Invasive Marketing

Since you want to increase customer retention and loyalty, you mustn’t contact them too often or in an invasive way.

So while it may be tempting to reach out via email marketing, social media, and even direct mail campaigns, remember only to send them offers relevant to their needs and interests.

3. Making The Purchase Difficult For Customers

We’ve all been there before, either when shopping online or in a physical store where the checkout processes were long and complicated.

While it may be necessary to collect certain information from customers depending on your business type, keep in mind that anything that makes their experience difficult may negatively affect their decision to return.

4. Not Offering Any Benefits For Your Customers

One of the biggest mistakes that businesses make is not offering any benefits for their existing customers, which can often lead to reduced customer retention due to a lack of incentives.

So instead of only focusing on attracting new business, remember to reward your faithful customers when offering discounts, promotions or other incentives that appeal to them.

5. Being Too Self-Centered

As a business owner, it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day tasks and forget that your customers will always come first. So whatever you do, just remember that any decision you make should ultimately benefit them in some way.

FAQs

How can you measure customer retention?

You can monitor the percentage of customers that remain loyal over a specific period through a loyalty program, as well as those who keep coming back for more.

What are the benefits of improving customer retention?

The main benefit has a solid customer base that keeps returning, thereby reducing your costs for acquiring new ones.

How can you better compete with existing customers?

It’s important to provide them with the best customer service, including contact methods if they have questions or concerns about their orders. Finding out what your customers want can be difficult, but it’s easier when you use surveys or other feedback tools.

By asking them questions about their experiences with your business and whether they would recommend you to others, you can better understand where they stand.

Last Thoughts

With a little customer retention know-how, you can help your Wix store thrive. Keep these tips in mind to improve the chances of retaining customers and boosting sales.

Do you have any other questions about improving customer retention? Let us know! We’d love to connect with you on social media or answer any more questions!