Retaining and building a long-term relationship with customers usually comes as one of the most crucial concern of any business. In these days of frangibility, customers have changed their shopping behaviors greatly which makes remaining them more challenging to retailers. No need to worry, we are here to lift your burden by showing you the ways to increase customer loyalty. Let’s explore further.
How has COVID-19 influenced on retail business?
When COVID 19 first broke out, many customers get rid of their normal shopping habits and started stocking up products. Necessary goods’ sales have surged, especially on their online channels or marketplaces like Amazon. As customers now work from home, they technically have more time to shopping online. Amazon once stated that they were “working around the clock with our selling partners to ensure availability on all of our products, and bring on the additional capacity to deliver all of your order.”
The pandemic has also disrupted the global supply chain, online orders are growing, as a matter of fact, many goods were out of stock, driving customers to seek alternative options. A McKinsey report found that “75 percent of Americans trying new shopping behaviors during the crisis, including new methods, brands, and places, with the intention of sticking with them in the long-term.”, which means the race to win customers’ heart are even more competitive than ever.
This leads to a critical question: “What should retailers do to retain & attract more loyal customers for the time being?“ Here are some recommendations based on our experience working with different businesses & retail experts worldwide.
Create customer loyalty with a seamless Omnichannel experience
Every sales channel should be well-connected:
- Real-time inventory update between online & offline channels to allow cashier inform customers in advance & reserve the incoming stock while store owners to order stock on time.
- Frictionless loyalty programs increase customers’ average order value and motivate them to come back: customers can earn & accumulate loyalty points by online purchasing then redeem those points in-store to get an extra discount when the store re-opens.
- Store pick-up, fast checkout: maintaining social distance is no longer an issue. Customers can order via website, inform the store of their pickup time and date to reserve their products and quickly come to the store to pick their orders up.
All of these can easily be done by having a POS that connected to your website. So that without any manual task, data between your sales channels synchronize in real-time, store staff stays updated with the latest change.
Customer connection is the key:
Everybody is going through a tough time. Hence, needless to say, emotional connection is much more appreciated than ever. Working with store staff to improve customer service, creating an emotional bond with customers by really paying attention to their needs, and collecting their feedbacks can perhaps help stores to strengthen the customer relationships. If your business is one of those forecasted to boom during the pandemic, let’s spend some more minutes to read on retail tips to prepare for that booming.
