Omnichannel marketing strategies have become commonplace for most businesses. However, being able to accurately leverage this full e-commerce strategy that directly impacts customer retention is still a struggle for e-commerce brands. Being both user-friendly and having a strong brand presence is an important environment to create to utilise the online shopping experience in its full capacity. Leading brands can provide a seamless and integrated online service throughout the customer's purchase journey. 

Many companies would assume that the customer experience journey ends once the buyer has purchased their product. However, the secret to successful customer retention is also highly dependent on the post-purchase experience.

What is the post-purchase experience?

The post-purchase experience encompasses how customers perceive they are being treated after purchasing a product or service from a brand. A study conducted by Walker found that customer experience will have surpassed price and product as the most important brand differentiator by the end of 2020. These perceptions possess a long-term effect on customer behaviours towards brands. 

Since this primarily focuses on two-way interactions between the consumer and the brand, a vital part of the post-purchase experience is communication, namely preventing occurrences such as WISMO inquiries (where is my order).

Why is the post-purchase experience important? 

According to American Express, 33% of customers will contemplate switching firms, after merely one episode of bad customer service. Hence, a poor delivery experience that leads to negative reviews directly impacts customer retention in the long run.

Simultaneously, acquiring new customers is often cost-inefficient. It can cost five times as much to gain a new customer as it does to keep an existing one. In a survey conducted by Salesforce, 91% of respondents stated that they are more likely to make a repeat purchase after a positive experience, and 71% indicated that quality of purchase experience was a key factor for purchase decisions.

With the rise of e-commerce, customers’ demands for seamless delivery experiences are also on the rise. Thus ensuring a positive purchase experience beyond the check-out phase not only allows companies to keep their existing customers satisfied and re-engage with them, but also provides a pivotal opportunity for customer retention.

What is customer retention?

Customer Retention is a company's ability in retaining its customers over time. The percentage-based metric measures how many customers are retained by the end of a given period. This metric not only highlights a company’s success in acquiring new customers but also its success in satisfying existing ones. 

Why is customer retention important?

A 5% increase in customer retention can increase company revenue by 25% to 95%. Often customer retention is largely tagged to marketing strategies however, there are valuable touchpoints throughout the buying journey that directly impacts ROI. 

With regards to the post-purchase journey, untapped opportunities can be the missing link for successful customer retention. According to Kolsky’s survey, 65% of companies can successfully upsell or cross-sell to existing customers. Research also shows that average order value rises with each repeat purchase the longer a customer remains loyal to a brand.

Ultimately, when it comes to reliability, customer retention is one of the key methods buyers use to ascertain a company’s reputation.

How do you improve customer retention?

When it comes to customer retention, the delivery experience is an often overlooked portion. 44% of customers said brands are not creating positive delivery experiences, while 98% said delivery is a key part of their brand loyalty. 

Without the personal touch that comes with in-person shopping, the stakes are higher than ever for e-commerce brands to step up and create memorable delivery experiences.

Features such as artificial intelligence, adoption of social commerce and personalised messaging can create the seamless delivery experience that brands are after. 

Here are 5 key strategies that enhance the post-purchase experience and thus improve customer retention in the long run. 

Create a personalized branded experience to improve brand awareness

Companies can enhance customer loyalty by keeping a strong brand presence throughout the buyer journey. This is inclusive of the post-checkout phase. Implementing customisable messaging adds a personalized touch and keeps customers engaged by improving the post-purchase visual environment.

For starters, a branded tracking page keeps customers within your ecosystem and improves brand recognition in the long run. Often brands lose their customers to separate carrier pages that can cause confusion and miscommunication when customers track their order parcels. 

Parcel Perform’s branded tracking page provides customers with full visibility of their parcel delivery status while allowing you to adopt customised messaging to individual delivery journeys.  

The key to boosting customer retention begins with a branded tracking page, In order to provide the best post-purchase experience to drive brand loyalty. Brand loyalty is a proven tactic that gives brands the competitive edge to push past their competitors. The ease of

tracking an order provide the consistency customers crave from online shopping experiences thus improving the chance of a repeat purchase.

Decathlon tracking page - Parcel Perfrom

Create high-value touchpoints to increase customer engagement

Data from TotalRetail highlights that between November 2020 and March 2021, customers tracked each delivery on average 3.1 times via email, and 6.2 times on mobile apps. Businesses can leverage these high-value touchpoints and adopt strategies that turn shipment tracking into a positive post-purchase experience.

Parcel Perform’s delivery notifications proactively communicate to customers at every step of the delivery journey. This allows brands to avoid the ‘awkward silence’ and prevent losing customers to a different brand for future purchase opportunities. 

Additionally, notification templates allow companies to fit their own branding in the post-purchase journey, increasing chances of cross-selling. As these are fully customizable, brands can amend the text and the content that goes into each notification. Email notifications are a great way to add proprietary content such as promotions and surveys to keep customers informed of future purchase opportunities.

Timely, accurate and customisable delivery updates improves post-purchase experience

A survey done by Digital Commerce 360 revealed that 93% of customers want to be updated throughout the entire delivery journey—from in-transit status to final arrival date. 47% also said lack of full visibility over their shipments would prevent them from a repeat purchase.

Therefore, in order for customers to stay loyal to their brand, companies must keep their customers notified with prompt delivery updates and key parcel details. Key factors that can delight your customer’s post-purchase experience and get them to stay loyal to your brand include:

• Shipment tracking information available to the customer

• Time it takes a customer to receive their order

• Accuracy and condition of the shipment received

• Ability to change location of pick-up before parcel gets delivered

• Ease of initiating and completing a returns process

Communicating effectively largely depends on the accuracy and timeliness of notifications. Parcel Perform’s notification triggers can be pushed to customers with customised content.

Brands can select an array of triggers to initiate effective 2-way communication with their customers. Updating customers promptly on their shipment status makes them feel a part of the delivery journey and helps alleviate the stresses associated with WISMO inquiries, brands who are able to do this well have a higher chance of seeing a repeat purchase by their customers directly impacting customer retention. 

Choice of channel allows customers to pick their mode of communication improving open rates 

Be it SMS or email or webhook notifications, the omnichannel approach is an important way of allowing customers to choose how they get communicated to. For example, SMS notifications are conveyed to create timeliness and should be used for information that is time-sensitive. On the other hand, email notifications are ideal for creating opportunities to repurchase other items by tracking customer behaviour online.

Parcel Perform integrates seamlessly with brands current CRM systems and allows them to customise the content and channel that they use. Tailoring communication to specific types of customers allows for better customer engagement. For instance, brands can choose to send different types of notifications based on their loyalty status. 

Parcel Perform’s customer Bicycles Online saw an increase of open rates to 80% by adopting channel-specific notifications. This saw a 40% increase in customer lifetime value and improved their bottom line significantly. 

An EDD increases checkout conversion rates and boosts customer satisfaction by preventing misdeliveries 

Regardless of what products they are buying or where they are located, online shoppers expect clear and timely delivery dates at checkout. Providing accurate estimated delivery dates allows brands to manage customer expectations effectively. 

On top of sending tailored email and SMS notifications to customers, brands must ensure that customers are well informed of when their orders will arrive as soon as possible. This ensures that customers can schedule ahead of time and make the necessary arrangements to be available for collection.

Keeping customers closely in the loop on their delivery statuses essentially reduces the chances of misdeliveries or rescheduled deliveries and ultimately helps rising costs in last mile.

Parcel Perform’s estimated delivery dates, gives brands the ability to provide customers with assurance on when their shipments will arrive. This results in greater conversions at the checkout phase.

Optimise your Post-Purchase Strategies by adopting Parcel Perform's notifications

The post-purchase experience is inevitably becoming a top priority for many in e-commerce businesses as an effective way to boost customer retention. However, there are numerous factors that brands have to take into consideration in order to optimise their approach.

The importance of notifications can’t be any clearer. Reach out to our sales team or your Key Account Manager to get started with our branded notifications.