Introduction
Any business needs to have customers to survive in the market. An online grocery platform is one such business that completely relies on the customers and their satisfaction. The e-commerce grocery store is facing a lot of competition in recent days. Many new online grocery platforms are getting launched and customers are getting more attractive introductory offers. We all have a lot of strategies to acquire new customers into our business but we fail to retain our existing customers with us. This is one of the reasons why most of the e-commerce grocery stores fail to succeed. Let us analyze the steps that can help you with customer retention.
Customer retention strategies
Once you launch your ecommerce grocery store, you will have a clear plan for promoting your brand and gaining more new customers to your online grocery platform. Now it is time to retain them by implementing the below-mentioned strategies.
Have an attractive loyalty program
Every customer wants the company to treat them with more respect than they treat their new customers. They want to feel the difference and should feel the proud moment when they enter your online grocery platform. For this, you need to have an excellent loyalty program exclusively for your customers. It can be a discount in pricing or gift hampers to purchase in your e-commerce grocery store or even cash back awards. Come out with a clear loyalty program and retain your customers.
Aggressive customer support
Pay more attention to your customer care executive who will get direct contact with the customers. They will be your brand ambassadors. And they will act as a pillar in building trust in customers’ minds. They need to be more attentive and aggressive in responding to the customers. They should never leave the customers unattended. Customers should always have a pleasant feel when they leave your grocery ecommerce platform. They should feel like coming to your e-commerce grocery store often and experience a perfect shopping experience. This is possible only with committed customer support.
Communication calendar
The most important thing that has to be followed in your online grocery platform is proper and periodic communication with your customers. Another important thing is you should not have too much communication that can irritate your customers. So have a clear idea about when you have communicated with your customers and when will be the next date you should contact them. For this, you need to maintain a communication calendar. The calendar should specify your last day of communication and your next schedule. When customers get periodic intimation from your end, they will never forget your e-commerce grocery store and for their next purchase, they will visit your online grocery platform.
Leverage personalization
People are fed with bulk messages and they don’t feel any personal touch with those messages. You may not get your customers’ attraction with those common messages. For this, you need to send a more personalized message by addressing each customers’ name. identify your audience preferences and communicate with them with their preferred communication channels. Some prefer to communicate through WhatsApp and some through emails. Follow their preferences. Allow them to have direct communication with you and let them clear their doubts then and there. This support you provide through your online grocery platform will delight your customers and they will never leave your e-commerce grocery store.
Get customer feedback
Making your customers comfortable to make them buy a product is all a preliminary process. Many marketing executives are skilled enough to convince the customer and make them buy the product easily. But the real process starts post-purchase. You need to make sure that the customer is happy after purchasing it with your online grocery platform. For this, you need to get their feedback. Allow them to share their opinion and suggestions about their purchase as this will help you to enhance the performance of your online grocery platform. Customers also will feel great for considering their feedback after the purchase of the products.
Share customers testimonies
Utilize the social media platforms to the core and share your customers’ testimonies on those platforms. These platforms will help you to reach more target audiences and through word-of-mouth, you can expect a great turn over in your e-commerce grocery store business. When you share the testimony, the customer will feel proud of selecting your online grocery platform.
Create a community
Using your online grocery platform you need to build a community for your customers. This community will allow your customers to share their thoughts. This will build trust and this will give a reason for your customers to return your online grocery platform. This nurtures the authentic relationship with your customers and will make them feel at home when they are on your online grocery platform.
Have a user-friendly e-commerce grocery store
Last but not least, you need to put more effort while developing your online grocery platform. Because this is where customers are going to stay while searching for the product and then they will purchase the product from your e-commerce grocery store. If they are not comfortable with the user-interface then they may not return at all. Make sure that your online grocery platform is mobile compatible as most of the customers are mobile users and they use their mobile to surf and purchase the product they want. The e-commerce grocery store should possess all the required essential features that facilitate the customers in buying the products. If possible include artificial intelligence and also machine learning technologies that will help you to understand your customers’ buying behavior.
Conclusion
Acquiring customers is one process and retaining customers is another great process in running an online grocery platform. Attention should be given to both processes. Only then you can make your e-commerce grocery store a successful one. The smart way to build a strong e-commerce grocery store is to retain your customers and make them your ambassador for your brand.
