You’ve made it through Black Friday, Cyber
Monday, Singles’ Day, (maybe even Boxing Day and New Year’s sales by the time
you’ve read this) and got yourself a whole lot of new customers – wohoo! With
such a huge volume of first-time buyers, it’s no surprise that our customer
success team is being asked how best to implement post-purchase programs, even
in the middle of sales season.
It’s important for any online retailer to
make sure that they’ve got a great program to help keep that buyer’s high and
get customers coming back for more, and this is a great time of year to test
different types of conversation to see what engagers your customers the most.
If you’re feeding in your order data, you can track the success of this in the retail dashboard of your dotdigital account, take note of the percentage of single vs repeat customers, and see the value of this conversion by multiplying your unique customers by your average order value…It’s a big number, right?!
Returns
Australia Post’s 2019 report revealed that Consumers buying fashion items are, on average, three times more likely to choose a vendor based on their returns policy, so make sure this is clear on your site for starters.
Costume box sends out this brilliant offer to return any item within 100 days of purchase. This helps to take the pressure off the warehouse processing returns at busy times of year, and also increases the value proposition for us as consumers.
Product aftercare
I adore this email from Stuck on you, sent out once you’ve bought your customized Bento box. Not only are they giving you ideas for what to pack inside, they’re also educating consumers on how to snap out the inner lid. This helps reduce customer frustration with the tight-fitting seal, reduces the number of customer service queries on the topic, and makes sure the product is being cleaned properly, helping it last longer.
Social interactions
Costume box helps to educate their audience on how to interact with them on social media. Although it’s old hat to some shoppers, for many of their demographic, it might be their first time tagging a company on Instagram. So, the brand walks you through it, with some gorgeous examples from their recent feed on the upcoming Day of the Dead festival.
Spend-less Shoes knows that a lot of their customers aspire to be social influencers, and so send this out post-purchase to inspire tagging and sharing on Insta, as part of a competition to win a shopping spree. A winning campaign both for Spend-less and for their customers.
Cross-/upsell
New Zealand clothing brand 3 Wise Men’s core offering is “3 for 3 hundy”, so when a customer makes it past checkout with only two items, they make sure to notify the customer, both at checkout and on email, how they can get the third item at the reduced price. This means you never miss out on a good deal!
Reviews
Remedy Kombucha sends out a review email asking customers to rate their favorite flavor, helping the company develop more flavors and refine existing products. No incentive required, so they can ensure the feedback is authentic and not just a lax attempt to win something. Authentic reviews help to encourage both first-time and repeat purchases. Whilst I’m on the site raving about their passionfruit flavor, I’m pretty likely to be putting another slab in my cart at the same time as I reminisce…
Shipping
Finally, don’t let shipping variables affect your post-purchase journeys. Shipping in Australia is a challenge for many retailers, and we often hear customers not wanting to send anything until they can guarantee the parcel has arrived. However, Baxter Blue does a fantastic job of addressing this head on. They check in with the customer, letting them know where they can track their parcel, and also offer some above-and-beyond help. They’ve also added some info on the product you’ve bought, to reduce any post-purchase remorse, highlighting the protection of their glasses against screen glare.
Key takeaways
Your first-time purchasers are a goldmine for future revenue. Make sure you look after them, and don’t just put them back into the BAU emails without saying thank you. Try one or more of the above conversations to make them sticky and turn them into brand advocates.
Sustain that buyer’s high to encourage repeat purchases. Try something new, and track the success of different conversations, using your retail dashboard and/or segmentation.
Choose the conversations which match your brand voice, and product range, and make sure you’ve given your customers a way to continue their conversation with your brand once their product has arrived.
If you’d like to hear more on the topic, you can check out the webinars I’m doing on post-purchase journeys, one with Trustpilot and another with Magento, coming soon to our resources section!
