8 Tactics to Improve Your Post-Purchase Customer Experience

Slice Intelligence reports that some of the biggest frustrations in an online shopping experience are delivery fees, return expenses, and return efforts.

However, these frustrations in online shopping experiences can be eliminated by providing a good pre- and post-purchase customer experience. Great customer experience means that your customers will spend more in your online store, and 86% of shoppers are ready to pay more for an excellent customer experience.

What is customer experience?

Customer experience (CX) is the customer’s perception of how they’re treated. Over time, customer perceptions affect their behavior towards a brand and build feelings and memories to drive their loyalty. If your customers like your products or brand, they’ll continue to shop with you for a long time and recommend you to others. 

Customers and shoppers no longer base their loyalty on the cost of the product; instead, they stay loyal to companies due to the experience they receive. Your customers will leave you if you fail to keep up with their increasing demands.

So, how will you keep your customers engaged without looking pushy or intrusive post-purchase? By motivating your customers with incentives, customer retention, establishing a real relationship with them, improving cross-selling and upselling, and listening to them post-purchase.

SuperOffice

1. Create a customer-friendly Return Policy

Don’t neglect the post-purchase anxiety of customers. As per the Slice Intelligence survey, the inconvenience and expense of returns are among the leading causes of online shopping frustrations. To lessen these frustrations, ensure you have a customer-friendly refund policy and return process.

92% of ecommerce customers say that they will buy again if the process of returns is easy. All you have to do is nullify the post-purchase anxiety by ensuring your customers are fully aware of the refund policy and returns. If you’re transparent about this, it will build trust with your customers, and shows that your brand understands your customer’s needs.

ASOS has done a great job of signposting this in their order confirmation email that includes a “Need Help?” button. It then takes the customer through to their customer care page.

2. Remember to say “Thank You”

One of the most common times to send a “thank you” email is right after the customer makes a purchase. Why is this important? Because you need to show your customers that there is a real human behind the screens.

Yet, sending the perfect “thank you” doesn’t have to be complicated, and creativity will play a vital role in this. For example, Crate&Barrel includes a “Thank You” at the top of their email and also links for customers to get back to the online store and shop more.

What’s great about this email? They have a “You’ll Also Love” section, where they introduce similar products, and “See What’s New With Our Other Brands” section, where shoppers can also search for other types of products from the Home page.

This kind of “Thank You” email is not only saying thank but also includes more content to keep customers engaged.

If you need a little inspiration, here are five ways you can spread the gratitude around and go the extra mile for your customers:

1. Include package inserts
2. Create a personal connection with videos
3. Offer post-purchase discounts
4. Provide gifts or samples
5. Spotlight your customers

3. Provide timely customer support

Excellent post-purchase communication is essential for customer loyalty. This is how online businesses assist their customers, from making online purchase decisions to resolving product issues.

However, there are some unique challenges involved when it comes to serving digital consumers:

• Common questions related to products, returns, and fulfillment
• High volumes of service and support requests
• Need to monitor multiple channels with response times

In fact, every major online retailer tracked under the American Customer Satisfaction Index faced a year-on-year decline in customer service.

So how can you provide an excellent customer service?

Harness the power of customer reviews

Excellent customer service practice can build positive relationships. To offer outstanding customer experience, start harnessing the power of customer reviews.

According to Laura Marciano, Head of Customer Experience at The DB Method, implementing Yotpo, an ecommerce platform, for customer reviews had the most significant impact on the company’s growth. This is the power of social proof, but reviews also provide the customer service team with more insights into the customer journey.

Improve your response time

When it comes to shopping at any online store, the foremost preferences are convenience and speed. According to Statista, 12% of American customers rate the number one customer service frustration as a lack of speed.

Letting customers reach the customer service team using different channels isn’t enough. The key to a well-performing team is to strike a balance between speed and convenience. Suppose you can serve customers with a consistent quality level in a short period? Then you’ll be heading in the right direction to providing a fully functional, multichannel, customer service strategy.

4. Get creative with your order confirmation email

A creative order confirmation email enables you to engage with your customers. Most brands neglect this opportunity, which means they also miss building on the customer relationship.

The order confirmation email is a golden opportunity for making more sales. So, why don’t you take the chance to upsell?  For example, allbirds did a fantastic job of delighting their customers at every touchpoint and giving you all the good feels which is easy to do if you’re using the right ecommerce app.

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5. Have a systematic content strategy

A highly effective way to improve customer satisfaction and decrease returns is to have a coherent and systematic personalized content strategy.

ModCloth is an excellent example of a brand educating its customers with educational blogs and providing a great way to connect potential customers. They have zero sales content and are more inclined towards educating their customers, which shoppers love.

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6. Set up a referral program

If you’ve already delighted your customers, make sure you get some good reviews and social media feedback.

Referrals not only bring new customers to your store, but they’re also one of the most effective marketing tactics. For example, Dropbox’s referral program got 4 million users in 15 months.

If you’re setting up a referral program, it’s important to make it easy for the customer to refer and claim their rewards. As your ecommerce store grows, it’s not feasible to manually track referrals, so choose a streamlined and scalable tool to handle this for you.

7. Provide relevant product recommendations

Providing customized product recommendations shows that your paying attention and increases the likelihood that your customers will interact with the content. A shocking 72% of consumers said they only interact with personalized marketing efforts, so offering recommendations is vital.

For example, a clothing store can complete a customer's look by recommending other apparel and accessories.

8. Send out replenishment reminders

Replenishment emails are an effective tactic because they serve as relevant reminders to your customers. For instance, if a customer purchases deodorant you can schedule an email to remind them to reorder based on how long on average it takes to use the product.

This technique is best-suited for products like makeup, pet food, and groceries etc., and emails can be set up to run automatically with little ongoing management. This is a great example from Clinique: