5 Customer Retention Tips To Grow Your Omnichannel Retail Business

What is the one thing that can transform an omnichannel retail launch into long-term revenue and stability? Long-term customers! 

So how can you boost customer loyalty? By providing them with what they expect the most!

That's right-An Impactful shopping experience. 

As the walls are being broken across all channels in business, consumers expect better brand engagement, interaction, a unified shopping experience, and incredible customer care and service. 

If you are wondering how loyal customers can increase your sales, then check this fact; according to a study , a 5% increase in customer retention rates raise the profits from 25% to 95%. This means that you should focus on keeping your existing customers happy. Higher customer loyalty is what separates your omnichannel retail from the rest.

Let's find out the importance of customer retention in retail and how you can create strategies to propel your business toward long-term success.

Importance of customer retention in retail 

In business or economics, the 80-20 rule or the Pareto Principle is applied. The rule states that 80% of outcomes come from 20% of inputs. When you think about this in terms of your customers, you will observe that 80% of your sales come from 20% of your existing customers. This is the main reason why you should pay close attention to retaining customers when you build an online store .

Here are a few more reasons to focus on:

Expensive to keep acquiring new customers

• It is much cheaper to get your existing customers to buy from you than the cost of getting new buyers. So, when you invest time and money into creating loyal customers who won't defect, you will be saving costs.

Loyalty results in word-of-mouth referrals

• Loyal customers can become your brand ambassadors and can direct new business your way. Consumer reviews and word of mouth are still significant forms of marketing. However, most customers trust peer reviews more than they trust marketing.

Easier to sell to your customers

• Enterprises have to build omnichannel retail to connect with customers at multiple touchpoints. However, when a customer makes a point of contact with the brand for the first time, they don't necessarily purchase. It is easier to sell when you have a post-sale relationship.  

Marketing cost-efficiency

• As your old loyal customer base is already familiar with your products, you wouldn't have to spend extra on the marketing budget. In addition, when you build an online store, you can store a list of customers' contact information that you can later use for retargeting, email marketing , and loyalty programs.

Loyal customers increase sales

• By focusing on customer retention strategy in omnichannel retail, you can achieve a higher return on investment (ROI) than other marketing strategies. There is a possibility that you can increase your brand revenue. Existing customers are more likely to spend more money and buy your products.

How to retain customers with effective strategies

Now that we have established that customer retention strategies will work wonders for your omnichannel retail, what steps are you going to take? To simplify, we are providing the top 5 customer retention tips that will let you see the best results. 

1. Provide customer with seamless shopping experience 

Brands can take advantage of ecommerce by creating an omnichannel retail experience such as a social media ad, a mobile push notification, an email newsletter, a conversion with your live chat options, or a visit to your retail store. There is a need for seamless integration from one touchpoint to another to provide an incredible shopping experience. By breaking down the barriers between multiple channels in business, you empower your consumer to interact with a company in a way that feels natural to them.

When you build an online store with StoreHippo, you can integrate all your channels like social media, app, PWA, website, offline store, payment gateways, shipping solutions for an effective omnichannel experience. You can personalize buyer journeys on all these channels with StoreHippo’s  headless commerce solutions. Using the various tools, you can map the customer journey across all platforms from website and mobile to social media for a seamless buying journey.

2. A customer loyalty and referral program 

Omnichannel retail strategies encourage customer loyalty by supporting customer loyalty programs, personalization, and collecting data from all channels for holistic user analytics. A retailer can develop a closer relationship with its customers by constantly reinforcing the brand across different channels and providing the optimal customer experience at every touchpoint.

You can incorporate customer activity across all channels and create a complete customer profile by offering omnichannel rewards. This can help you develop tailor-made rewards for those customers with a mix of brand experiences. For instance, when you build an online store, you can start a loyalty program and provide the option to encash it on any medium-offline or online. Loyalty programs depend on how much a customer spends with your business to get rewards (free samples, discounts, or free products). This usually drives up the average order value.

Using StoreHippo’s discount engine, you can offer discounts, coupons, promo codes, limited period offers and more to your loyal customers.  Also, you can share referral links to get more customers.

3. Proactive customer service

89% of consumers are more likely to buy again from the same brand after a positive customer service -experience. (Source: Salesforce).  Omnichannel retail customer service delivers a strong, cohesive, integrated customer experience, free of restrictions so that the customer can switch multiple channels and receive quality service. For example, when you build an online store, customers can use your website to interact and later on walk into a physical store and experience similar services across the channels.

Omnichannel retail customer support integrates every outreach method in one board to serve your clients in various ways. This proves convenient and effective to your users and boosts your brand’s image and credibility.

StoreHippo offers automated tools and features such as social media and live chat integration, emails, SMS notifications, feedback surveys, etc to connect with your customers across all mediums . 

4. Building relationship with the customers with omnichannel marketing

Do you want to build a solid business with significant growth potential? Then having a good relationship with customers is imperative to your success.

When you build an online store that supports omnichannel marketing, you can seamlessly integrate branding, messaging, and online and offline touchpoints. Your buyers can now interact with your brand on innumerable channels, from social media to customer service hotlines. An omnichannel retail approach ensures that your buyers have a positive, consistent experience on each channel, such as:

• Consistent brand tone and vision

• Personalized messages based on buyers’ interest

• Branded content based on past interactions and stages of the buyer's journey

By providing a pleasant buying omnichannel retail experience to your clients on a consistent basis, they are bound to become loyal to your brand. 

Using StoreHippo’s ecommerce platform, you can create various targeted landing pages for different types of customers. Take the help of inbuilt templates and SEO tools to promote your content across channels. 

5. Use data and customer account

To create a long-lasting relationship with your customers, you should know the users you are targeting. When you are able to marry the user persona, product and channel fit, it results in building a true omnichannel retail strategy.

Take the example of Burberry, the luxury fashion brand. They have pioneered numerous omnichannel retail strategies to deepen relationships with customers and ultimately drive sales. Burberry recently launched a new product line, titled “Series B”, exclusively on Instagram and other social channels for “Gen Z”. These products can only be purchased in a single 24-hour window on the 17th of each month. The Burberry campaign proved successful and has paved the way for other activities across multiple channels to deepen the relationship between their customers.

StoreHippo helps you grasp the customer journey from various touchpoints to chart a personalized experience. When you build an online store with StoreHippo, you can collect data across all channels to meet consumer expectations. Using inbuilt tools, provide your customers with an omnichannel retail experience by sending them personalized messages and content. 

Conclusion

As the competition becomes fierce, retaining customers has become more difficult. With the rising customer expectations and shopping experiences towards omnichannel, all you have to do is to build an online store with a credible ecommerce platform . StoreHippo supports omnichannel selling, by providing you with a gamut of benefits to successfully grow your business and retain your customers in one place. Start your 14 days trial to bring customers back again and again to your online store.