So many companies think that their success depends on the quality of their product or how robust their sales team is. Yet so many companies with aggressive sales tactics and excellent products fall flat on their face.
Why do these companies have such high churn rates? What’s going wrong? Take a look at the ultimate guide to reducing eCommerce churn rate to find out more.
The real success of a company depends on how well they solve a customer’s problem. Happy customers do not churn! The solution to reducing eCommerce churn rate sits with customer service and communication with their clients.
If you have a great product that people signed up for, you need to keep communicating with them to get their feedback and to solve any technical issues they may have.
Writing personal thank you notes is not enough people! You need to put a robust system in place and automate processes in order to decrease your churn rate. Here are some simple ways to do that.
1. Install a Feedback Bar
A feedback bar is a place where customers can write their questions, concerns, comments, right there on your site. You can put this in your product, so they see it every time they login.
You can either build your own feedback bar, or you can use companies like UserVoice or Qualaroo to quickly set one up.
Here is a great feedback bar from KISSmetrics:
2. Send on-boarding emails
If you haven’t done this yet you are way behind the curve. You are perhaps somewhere back there in the 90’s still trying to hula-hoop.
Every new customer should receive a series of simple emails that introduce them to the key features of your product.
If you are an eCommerce store you can still send several important emails. You can send an email explaining your shipping policy, an email going over your different product collections, an email showcasing your top sellers, etc.
Pick out the best stuff about your product and don’t be afraid to send it to the new customer or signup. If they don’t like what you are about they won’t be a good customer anyways.
Here is a great email from Evernote:
3. Use social media
Is this an obvious one? It should be. Social media can look basic but there actually a lot that goes into it, and a lot of little tricks that make your business more available and approachable to the customer.
Install an auto-response on your Facebook chat so your response time is virtually instantaneous. This will show up on the main page and customers will know that you are always available for their questions. You can also post a link in the auto-response to some interesting content on your site or a new product line on your store.
Remember – customers that get messages from you on their phones are less likely to cancel or to unsubscribe.
Use Instagram and Snapchat for posting visual content about your product or brand. If you do it the right way it will bring a lot of engagement your way and will make your brand and the customer’s shopping experience memorable.
4. Offer customers to message you on chat
Consider using a chatbot and having that as an option for some of your customers. Chatbots provide not only a unique shopping experience for your customers, but also personalized product recommendations and a new way for customers to buy your products at their convenience.
Chat programs becomes more and more popular now that I am not used to seeing a company that doesn’t have some type of a chatbot. This is literally the best indicator that a business is there to help – when I can go on their site and start chatting with one of their reps.
I would highly recommend installing one of these apps on your site. It will dramatically improve your retention rate. If you are looking for an easy one to use I would recommend Intercom. However it is not specific for eCommerce.
Our partners over at MMUZE have used vertical-based AI technology to build a chatbot specifically for eCommerce. This tool has transformed the online conversational experience for consumers.
Here is a great video example for how it works:
5. Know why customers cancel
Last but not least, probably the most important item on our list of suggestions is knowing why your customers cancel. You have to send them an email and ask why they canceled, and then you have to make it right.
You know the golden rule of business? If you do right by a customer they will come back or tell someone about you and get you more sales. Yes, I just made the rule up, but this is completely true.
You have to know for yourself why your customers cancel. Then you have to go and fix those issues so that your other customers remain happy and continue buying your products.
