Customer Loyalty: More Sustainability in E-Commerce

Customer loyalty in e-commerce is more important than ever. But why is that? Loyal customers are not only important assets for a retailer as buyers for their own needs, but also recommend you to others and insist that their friends and acquaintances also do business with you.

Despite the good data confirming the efficiency of customer loyalty, many online shops concentrate on gaining more new customers. There’s no question about it: acquiring new customers is an important part of marketing efforts. In this article, however, we are dedicated to optimising customer retention in online shops.

What is Customer Loyalty?

Customer loyalty means that a customer remains loyal to the company and the brand over a longer period of time. These customers are called existing customers and have bought at least twice from the same online shop. By means of customer care, also called customer relationship management (CRM for short), brand loyalty is achieved with the help of various measures.

We hold: Customer loyalty is the ability of a company to convert a new customer into an existing customer who remains loyal to the company over a longer period of time or, at best, permanently and thus brings it higher sales.

As is usual in online marketing, there is also a key figure and formula for measuring customer loyalty:

5 Reasons for Customer Loyalty in E-Commerce

Most companies have almost perfected the acquisition of new customers with their marketing strategies and resort to a high advertising budget every year for the acquisition and development of new target groups. Existing customers are often treated stepmotherly and advertised less intensively.

What is the reason for this? Customers are usually taken for granted. They “last”. But too many marketing departments still overlook the fact that a customer who does not build a relationship with the company is often gone with just one click. Competitive pressure is increasing, the ranks of alternative offers are thickening and global players have long since understood that customer loyalty in online shops is the key to success.

1. Customer Loyalty – Significantly More Turnover

On average, almost 7 new customers need to be acquired in order to generate the same turnover per website visit that a single existing customer brings you. This difference is enormous and clearly shows that the focus on customer retention brings long-term benefits. The shopping basket of satisfied existing customers also tends to be higher. Trust in the brand has already been established and it is not uncommon for new products to be tried out. Keyword: up-selling and cross-selling. So we have a put situation: customer loyalty is cheaper and at the same time brings more turnover.

2. Satisfied Customers Are The Best Advertising

Those who are satisfied or even enthusiastic about a product, brand or online shop recommend it almost completely naturally to friends, family and especially in social media or on rating platforms. Today, personal recommendations are more efficient than ever. Due to the immense flood of offers, we now prefer to trust someone who has already had a positive experience. Keyword: Social Proof.

3. Online Customer Loyalty Ensures Planning Security

Existing customers are loyal souls and will continuously buy something. Of course, the intervals vary depending on the industry. In an online shop with consumer products, existing customers will certainly buy more often than from a fashion manufacturer. But one thing is certain in all industries: the regular customer comes back again and again and is therefore really the “tribe” for companies.

4. Customer Loyalty And Targeted Optimisation

Existing customers often provide important feedback, whether positive or negative is irrelevant. Through the trust bonus, they try to encourage your favoured company in something or to point something out. If you know how to really listen to your existing customers, you can optimise your products and services sustainably and in the long term. This also helps in the further course of acquiring new customers. When your existing customers realise that you take feedback seriously and make changes, you even turn customer loyalty into customer enthusiasm.

5. Customer Loyalty Sets You Apart From The Competition

Contrary to what many think, price is often no longer the deciding factor today. When customers feel valued, seen and cared for by a company, emotional factors decide on a purchase. Those who understand customer loyalty online ensure that an emotional customer relationship is built up with services and a high level of quality.

How To Grow Customer Loyalty for Online Shops?

Now that we know the advantages of customer loyalty online and why it is immensely important for companies, the question arises: How do you build stable customer loyalty?

The perfect service

Businesses today need to be able to respond to customer enquiries faster and more professionally than ever before and ensure stable accessibility in as many ways as possible. In addition to telephone, email and social media, a direct chat function or even Whatsapp are now suitable means of getting in touch with customers quickly. Friendliness and speed ensure satisfied customers.

In addition to customer care, a high service orientation also includes customer recovery. If potential customers have abandoned a purchase, targeted measures can ensure that the prospective customer becomes a customer after all. We at uptain have developed an intelligent technology that recognises reasons for abandoning a purchase and, with the help of a proactive customer approach, turns interested visitors into customers after all.

Content that creates added value

One guarantee for building trust and thus customer loyalty in online shops is to create content that offers customers real added value. Guides, e-books, interesting blog articles, detailed product descriptions, a detailed FAQ section: if online shops offer much more than just the product or service, the chances increase immensely that customers will also remain existing customers, because where else will they find such comprehensive and high-quality information?

Newsletter-Marketing

A classic, but still one of the most valuable tools for customer retention online: The newsletter. Today, it is hard to imagine companies without regular e-mail messages and they offer a great opportunity for customer loyalty. The content should always have a mixture of added value and advertising. In addition, newsletters are an ideal way to communicate discounts and price reductions. This pleases customers and creates trust.

Newsletters often offer the perfect introduction for interested parties who are not yet ready to buy. With uptains newsletter popups, you can play newsletter popups to visitors who are interested but not yet ready to buy. Incentives tailored to the individual visitor, such as discount codes or FOMO (the fear of missing out), increase the chance of qualitative newsletter subscribers.

Collect points

Who doesn’t enjoy collecting points to later convert into vouchers or another bonus? Rewarding regular customers strengthens the emotional bond and creates incentives for a follow-up purchase, even a higher order volume. In most cases, point collection systems take the form of club memberships, which can be equipped with further benefits for existing customers such as birthday discounts or Christmas vouchers as well as free return shipping or similar.

Personal communication

Interacting and communicating with customers on a personal level is one of the core measures of customer loyalty in online shops. With personalisation and the associated tailoring of offers, customer needs are specifically satisfied, which ensures a high level of satisfaction. This includes customised offers as well as the individual customer approach and a shop design geared to the target group.

With the help of intelligent data processing, uptain’s shopping cart abandonment emails, exit intent pop-ups and newsletter popups are also personalised. Millions of data points indicate, for example, whether the customer prefers to be formally addressed.

Those who win existing customers with the right measures build a healthy foundation and from there can steadily provide for new customers. Customer care is an ongoing process and an integral part of the marketing of every company. The goal is to continuously optimise processes, because the demands of customers also change. In the long term, consolidated customer relationships pay off for online shops. And best of all: satisfied existing customers automatically generate new customers. One more reason to take care of them.