5 Highly Effective Customer Retention Strategies for Omnichannel Retailing

Roughly 50% of customers say they would switch to a new brand after one bad experience and 69% of consumers are less likely to shop with a retailer in the future if a purchase is not delivered within two days of the promised date. 

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Customer retention and acquisition drive growth in different ways. Acquisition grows your customer base, and retention increases CLV (customer lifetime value). That's why retention is more effective than customer acquisition, as it makes sure that loyal customers keep visiting your business and help grow your profitability. 

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Another strong reason is that acquiring new customers is five times more expensive than retaining existing ones. After which, you have to work hard to engage them and make them sales qualified. Retained customers take this workload off your shoulders and offer a huge advantage compared to newly acquired customers.

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Any demanding customer has only three crucial expectations from an omnichannel retailer – personalized experience, quality customer service, and extreme convenience. Though it is not impossible to fulfill them, retailers are falling short in providing a best omnichannel retail experience and losing customers in significant numbers. 

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Here are five proven customer retention strategies to grow your omnichannel retail business.

1. Use customer data wisely

Omnichannel retail focuses on omnichannel data that emphasizes an integrated approach. Retail businesses can use the data to understand customer behaviour, historical customer activity, customer journey, and their future needs & wants. 

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Here is how retailers can use omnichannel data for customer retention:

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• Identify insights and create an accurate customer profile – When all relevant data is centralized, you can start mining it for insights. Based on which you can create customer profiles that describe their behaviours, preferences, attitudes, and values accurately. 
• Plan precise strategies to engage with the customers – You know your customers' taste buds (response & behaviour) on every channel. It can help plan out effective customer engagement strategies. 
• Increase personalization in content at every channel - Create a 360-degree view of subscriber behaviour and supplement audience profiles with third-party data to make data-driven content decisions and enhance customer experience.
• Deliver highly targeted advertising to drive acquisition – You know what your customers like and dislike. Design a text, email, or video ad targeting these customers. 
• Improve product recommendations in upselling & cross-selling strategies – Omnichannel data helps you analyze the buying pattern of customers across channels and recommend products based on their buying behaviour.

2. Offer seamless shopping experience

It has been found that nearly nine out of ten customers want a seamless omnichannel experience. The main advantages of a seamless shopping experience in an omnichannel environment are here.

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• Creates customer loyalty that incentivizes new business and strengthens reputation through word-of-mouth marketing.
• Make shopping experiences unique, memorable, and enjoyable for new and existing customers.
• It has no unnecessary steps that can slow down a customer or cause them to have second thoughts about their purchase.
• It helps retailers reach out to their target audience and increase sales by providing them with information on nearby stores that sell products they are looking for.
• Customers can easily find out the best deals and offers through the merchant's products with an improved search algorithm.
• It also gives a hassle-free shopping experience on smartphone as it is available offline and online.

Fynd offers a hassle-free seamless shopping experience to retail brands that helps customers sail online and offline without friction.

3. Use gifts and omnichannel loyalty programs

Exclusive gifts for customers are an excellent way to create customer loyalty between a retail business and consumers. It's the perfect answer to trigger customer engagement, generate the next sale, solve service problems or repair customer issues.

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As per a consumer survey, 74% of customers chose a brand based on its strong loyalty or discount program. Additionally, 71% of brands that use omnichannel loyalty programs said transaction volume spurred by these programs increased by more than 50% over the previous years.

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For example, Ultamate Rewards Program is an excellent example of using tiers to engage customers. There are three tiers based on the annual spending of a customer. Everyone begins as a member. Spending $500-$1,200 gets you Platinum, and spending over $1,200 gets you Diamond. The Ulta mobile app users get personalized content and can easily track their points and manage offers in a single place. 

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A leading e-commerce app for online shopping- fynd.com runs a reward program for greater loyalty by its customers. 25% of order value is credited as reward points on every order that can be burned on the next order for extra discounts. They also run redeem showers on weekends where customers can burn points to get upto 60% off of order value. 

4. Ensure a proactive omnichannel customer service

Retail businesses can provide a more seamless, integrated customer experience that is unrestricted by the channel through which a customer contacts you using omnichannel retail customer service. The ultimate goal of omnichannel customer support is to integrate all modes of communication into a single dashboard, thereby eliminating siloed customer engagement.

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For example, customers can transit from shopping on their desktops to their phone and then into a physical store, receiving consistent service across all channels.

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Key benefits of omnichannel customer service:

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Reduce churn rate

‍Retail businesses experience a huge reduction in customer churn when customers are entertained across their preferred channels in real-time.

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Faster complaint resolution

‍Adopting digital tools and strategies increases customer satisfaction and complaint resolution rate. 

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Enhance customer experience

‍The customer experience improves when brands engage with customers across all online and offline customer service channels and provide consistent support.

5. Build a positive relationship with customers

Maintaining positive customer relationships is critical to realizing significant growth potential. It indicates that the customer base is loyal to the brand, has a positive buying experience, and receives support and advice when necessary.

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According to Forbes, omnichannel has some major advantages to improve business-customer relationships.

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Boosts customer loyalty

By providing excellent customer support, businesses can win the hearts of their customers and motivate them to keep coming back. It is where omnichannel comes into play - it enables companies to deliver exceptional customer experiences across multiple channels and get valuable feedback simultaneously.

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Assures effective communication

‍A crucial research says, if customers wait for even 5 minutes after making contact with the brand, then there is a 10x reduction in the odds of retaining the customer. 

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An omnichannel bot helps provide an immediate response to customers within seconds. It can provide quick, personalized, and consistent answers to customer queries in real-time by leveraging its machine learning capabilities and deriving insights from previously stored data.

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Improves brand image

‍Omnichannel strategy enables you to project an influential brand that is customer-centric and places the customer at the center of your business. It helps the brand expand into new markets and attract new consumers, as the brand's good reputation serves as its cover letter.

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Your customers will never leave empty-handed with Fynd Store's endless aisle solutions! It ensures that customers get their hands on favourite products and have a memorable shopping experience even when in-store products are out of stock.

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Not just for your stores, Fynd enables your customers to have a great online experience when you build your omnichannel website through Fynd Platform. Easy DIY settings give you the freedom to customize the user interface and build a great brand image and lets consumers have an experience they keep coming back for. 

Conclusion

Retaining Omnichannel retail customers is vital for omnichannel retailers to stay competitive in their market. Customers want their shopping experience to be seamless, without barriers, and without the need for multiple adaptations. 

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Fynd's omnichannel solutions offer seamless shopping and a delightful customer experience, giving retail customers a compelling reason to stick around in today's fast-paced, competitive retail environment. If you're interested in learning more about it, contact us for a quick demonstration.