The best customer retention strategies in B2B eCommerce

A streamlined customer journey is essential for any business looking to retain customers. Attracting new customers is just one part of the success story; retaining existing customers is even more crucial. According to Marketing Metrics, the likelihood of selling to a new customer falls between 5% and 20%, while the chance of achieving an upsell with existing customers is between 60% and 70%. Often, the focus is on pursuing new prospects, but customer retention deserves more attention. In this blog, we delve deeper into the importance of customer retention and how to ensure you retain customers for your organization.

• Increased customer value: Building a strong relationship with your customers increases their value to your company, also known as customer lifetime value (CLV). Loyal customers are more likely to increase the value of their purchases and provide more cross-selling and upselling opportunities.
• Advocacy: Satisfied and loyal customers serve as advocates for your organization. This leads to positive word-of-mouth, improving your company's reputation, which can further drive growth.
• Stability and predictability: By retaining customers, you reduce churn within your organization—the percentage of customers who stop using your product or service. With a stable customer base, you bring stability and predictability to your revenue, providing a solid foundation for investments and risk mitigation.
  
  

eCommerce Strategies for Customer Retention

Customer retention doesn't happen automatically; it requires strategic choices. How do you implement strategies in your eCommerce to boost customer retention? Here are some ways to achieve this.

Optimize the user experience

Your webshop is a crucial sales channel for your organization. To foster customer loyalty, it's essential to invest in an optimal user experience. Below are some strategies and examples to consider.

Personalize the customer experience

Offer your customers a personalized experience, such as customizing offers based on their historical purchases. This increases the likelihood of them making repeat purchases within your webshop. Ensure that your webshop includes functionalities that make it as easy as possible for customers to place repeat orders.

Provide added value within your webshop

Enhance your webshop by offering functionalities that encourage repeat purchases. For instance, Charlie Temple has a feature that allows you to upload your eyeglass prescription (with your prescription details) to save it in your personal account area. Another example is the 'Nike By You' feature, which enables customers to design and save personalized shoes that align precisely with their preferences.

Feedback and improvement

It's also important to stay in close contact with your customers regarding their experiences with your webshop. If you notice that customers encounter difficulties in certain steps of the process—such as searching, filtering, or making payments—you can implement targeted optimizations to enhance the user experience.

Offer loyalty programs and sample packages

Loyalty programs are a promising way to retain customers for your organization. Reward customers based on a points system with exclusive discounts or early access to certain products or services. You can also encourage customers to explore more of your product range by offering sample packages. This allows existing customers to easily acquaint themselves with a product, feature, or service they haven't used before.

Optimize your customer service

Your customer service is a crucial component within your eCommerce organization. If customer service isn't up to par, increasing customer retention becomes challenging. According to a Microsoft study, 96% of customers consider customer service an essential aspect of brand loyalty.

Therefore, invest in integrated customer service, making it as easy as possible for customers to contact you anytime and anywhere—via email, chat(bot), phone, and social media. Additionally, it's crucial to train your customer service representatives to provide the right service, communicate effectively with customers, and, when possible, drive sales.

Equip your customer service with the right tools to access all customer information (360 degrees) instantly. Many customer service representatives often need to retrieve information from the ERP system, while customers browsing the webshop have much more product information readily available.

Regular and relevant communication

To bind customers to your organization, it's important to regularly communicate relevant content. Regular communication helps you stay top of mind with your customers. However, it's especially important that the information you share is relevant to your target audience. Consider, for example, blogs with inspirational examples tailored to customers' interests.

Mailing campaigns are also a valuable strategy for increasing customer retention. By conducting A/B tests, you can determine which incentives work and which don't. Think of coupons, discounts, and free shipping—all methods to encourage repeat purchases.

Customer retention: not a luxury, but a necessity

Customer retention is not a luxury but a necessity to grow your organization. Your eCommerce platform is a valuable sales channel for retaining customers, but you also have opportunities outside of it to boost customer retention. By understanding the importance and strategies for customer retention and applying them, you establish a stable foundation for long-term customer relationships. Investing in an optimal customer experience contributes to retaining customers for your organization and the success of your digital commerce.