How your post-sale customer journey could be costing you

Why are you making your customers scramble for information on their orders on their post-sale customer journey? Let’s be honest, when you think of your own best customer experiences, they are ones that kept you informed every step of the way. Yet so many companies still continue to cease communication once the customer has paid. You may think that since you have the sale, it doesn’t matter. But the reality is that follow-up calls, emails, social media inquiries or web chats with your customer service agents all add up, and detract resource from other parts of your business. By offering a few messages to customers in their post-sale journey, you can avoid this huge expense. Better still, you are creating the kind of exceptional customer experience that will generate repeat business.

Here are four easy steps to consider in your post-sale customer journey communications:

Step 1 of the post-sale customer journey: Order confirmation

At the point of sale, (the start of the post-sale customer journey) you can allow users to opt-in to receive their delivery confirmation via SMS. You can offer a link to view their order in full on the website. This is a good opportunity to place similar products the customers may be interested in to create further revenue. By allowing the SMS to be 2-way, you are also giving users a way to immediately communicate with an agent to ask questions or rectify a problem such as entering the wrong address.

Don’t forget, you can ask customers if they’d like to opt-in on other channels of their choosing, like Facebook Messenger. The added advantage of this is that users can receive rich content on these such as an PDF receipts.

For customers with your app, a simple push notification can let users know their order is confirmed and is a great way to create a more holistic user journey.

Step 2 of the post-sale customer journey: Parcel shipped

A message on any channel (be it push, SMS or rich channels such as Facebook Messenger or RCS) to let users know their parcel has shipped is a low-cost way to provide a great customer experience in their post-sale customer journey. It also empowers the customer with information they may have otherwise tried to seek out. At the cost of your agent’s time. Finally, it creates peace of mind for your users and instills confidence in your brand as a result.

Step 3 of the post-sale customer journey: Arriving today

This message provides the same benefits as the parcel shipped in the post-sale customer journey, but also allows users to make sure they are in to receive the parcel or make alternative arrangements. SMS and Facebook Messenger messages can be easily forwarded to other occupants of the house.

Step 4 of the post-sale customer journey: Feedback

By using SMS or Facebook Messenger to send a message a day or two later asking for feedback on the order, you are intervening with a customer who may have a problem before it escalates into a public online rant. You are also then provided with valuable data to improve your service. SMS and Messenger are easy channels for users to provide feedback on. Simply allows customers to give answers to questions with numerical values, or by typing additional comments. This survey could even be automated or conducted with a bot and then passed to an agent if required. You can also use these channels to encourage users to leave product reviews. These are very influential to other customers. A push notification can be used this way too, and can ask users for feedback but then take users to an online form to fill in, or open the in-app chat.

Want to learn more about how Comapi can help your business? Book a demo today.

See also: 19 innovative ways to use SMS as a business.