It is pretty much the first piece of wisdom that you as an entrepreneur are confronted with when it comes to regular customers and new customers. Customer retention is cheaper than acquiring new customers - on average five times as much! So how can you manage to retain your customers so that they become regular customers and buy from you again and again? A simple but effective option is digital goodies that you can make available to your customers on top. You can find out how this works and why free goodies can create convincing added value from Renée Lauer, Marketing Lead at Billbee.
How does customer loyalty work and is it really important?
There should no longer be a need to discuss the relevance of customer loyalty. The large shark tank with the many vendors on the market and the few small fish is well known. The more important question is how exactly you can build a relationship with your customers.
An example in advance to clarify the situation: The friendly, clean bakery down the street can easily imagine what its customers appreciate about it. The products are of course in the foreground, but all the little touches around them add that certain something. It could be the friendly service, the greeting when you walk through the door, or a simple gesture like writing your name on the coffee cup that keeps you coming back to “your favorite bakery.” All of these touchpoints create a personal connection with customers, which does not exist in this form in e-commerce because everything takes place online. So how can you get closer to your customers online and retain them in the long term with digital gestures?
One thing is clear: fighting the battle solely on product features and price is not productive. You are making it too easy for your competitors to beat you at this level and poach your customers sooner or later if you are simply “cheap”. There will always be a provider who is cheaper, offers a discount, etc. So you have to take a different approach to stand out from your competitors. How about approaching your customers and sending them additional information about your products as digital goodies – free of charge and just like that?
Going back to the bakery next door example, you should first ask yourself when exactly something seems personal. Basically, this is always the case when you give your customers the feeling that you know their current situation, their status or their emotions and respond to them. To do this successfully, you should look at how you use good customer communication as a bridge to your buyers.
The Billbee customer portal
Billbee is tackling exactly this challenge of providing customers with a consistent and personalized experience in all phases. This is what it was made for Billbee customer portal developed as a useful supplement. Billbee is a cloud-based solution for multichannel retailers.
As a seller, you have the opportunity to create your own area for your customers, which you can also customize with a logo and individual texts. You can take your buyers to the customer portal directly after they have placed their order. You also have the option of using this to process your orders. Make the invoice available to your customers there and let them pay the invoice amount directly in the portal!
Now you can go one step further – which brings us back to customer loyalty. In order to create another touchpoint with your customers, you can contact them a certain time after the order, for example when the package has arrived, with additional goodies and thus offer added value. For example, if you sell wool or fabrics, you could provide your customers with free patterns afterwards. Or if you sell cooking or baking utensils, share delicious recipes with your customers! There is often an opportunity to respond to seasonal trends, for example with tips for a spectacular but very simply prepared Christmas dinner or an Easter tablecloth to sew yourself. With a little creativity, you can transfer such digital goodies to almost any product. Recipes, patterns, e-books, training plans or white papers are just a few of these options.
The best thing about it: Everything can be easily integrated into your customer communication by sending your customers a link to their personal customer portal. What results from this should be clear: surprise for the customers. Especially today, it is no longer a given that you can get something for free or on top. Everything costs money. This way you can create added value compared to your competitors. Customers will remember this the next time they buy and will prefer you as a seller. After all, you have more to offer about the products than others most likely don’t. In this way, you create customer loyalty that you can offer easily and automatically.
Numerous other functions such as time-limited downloads or the storage of watermarks make the Billbee customer portal a useful addition to your professional online shop.
Other ways to use customer-related information for customer loyalty
Another way to strengthen customer loyalty is through customer-related data. By segmenting different information that you receive through orders or similar customer contacts, you can allocate and use existing customer data accordingly. There are various types of information here, for example personal information. These include the first name, last name, user name, birthday, etc. You can include the customer’s name in every email and use a direct approach. This is how you reach a personal level in communication. On birthdays you can send congratulations with a personal discount code or voucher.
That’s what they come with phase-specific information: The customer has goods in the shopping cart but has not submitted the order. An email or an automatic pop-up that motivates him/her to return to the cart and complete the order are good ways to achieve the sale. When customers land in your shop for the first time, you can also greet them with a personal chat in which you offer to be available if they have any questions. Nowadays, this can easily be achieved with a chatbot. The shipping address means you always know where your customers are coming from. Here you can also send regional emails that can encourage you to make a purchase: “The weather in Dortmund is supposed to be really hot next week – do you already have the right flip-flops for your bikini?” These are locally specific informationthat you can use to make your customers aware of your products.
Of course, it always depends on what data you have available and how you get it. Everything should be legally flawless, otherwise it can be expensive. What is certain, however, is that you can respond very personally to your customers with small but important data in order to make them aware of you and your products.
Renee As Marketing Lead at Billbee, he is primarily responsible for planning and organizing events and marketing. She always has an open ear for users’ small and large problems.
