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Recently, we wrote about increasing the revenues for your online store by using various strategies like Pricing, Content Marketing, etc. Most of those strategies are focussed on Customer Acquisition.
But nowadays, it is not just all about customer acquisition – where the customer would come to your online WooCommerce store, purchase an item or service and go away. No! Customer retention is equally important. You need that customer to come back to your online store next time.
Post Purchase Consumer Behaviour Chart
Post-Purchase Customer Experience
So, what is this post-purchase experience in WooCommerce? Well, in very simple terms, this is basically that stage of the buyer decision process when that buyer will take any other additional action purely based on the satisfaction or also dissatisfaction that they got from your WooCommerce online store & from your customer service.
This post-purchase experience of the customer is the final stage in the customer decision making process, whereby the customer will assess whether he/she is satisfied with a purchase.
Since that is the final stage, it means the customer has already done all the research & evaluated other alternatives and has then chosen to purchase from you. That is what makes post-purchase customer experience an area where extreme care needs to be taken so as to not drive away the customer after their initial purchase.
Customer Post Purchase Behaviour Statistics
According to research conducted by Harvard Business Research on Customer Post Purchase Behaviour, only 16% of online Ecommerce stores are focused on customer retention. The other 84% of online Ecommerce stores say creating a consistent customer experience across channels is very important.
Also, 93% of customers prefer to buy from brands that use personal information to make shopping experiences more relevant while the other 7% will likely buy from online Ecommerce sites that they are less familiar with.
Let us look into the top 10 tips that you should be using or start to use so as to improve the post-purchase experience in WooCommerce. These tips will assist you to keep your customers engaged. And most importantly, it will help convert these customers into repeat customers.
10 Ways You Can Improve The Customer Post Purchase Experience in WooCommerce
1. Timely & Relevant Post Purchase Communication
This is one of the most important things to take into consideration when thinking about the post-purchase experience of the customer. Many online customers are much receptive to receiving cold email marketing from online stores or websites that they recently purchased an item or service from.
When a customer buys an item or service from your store and goes away, always be ready to provide that customer with timely post-purchase communication so as to keep in touch with him or her through your WooCommerce store newsletters about offers or onboarding process or even just say a simple thank you.
You should also provide the customer with relevant post-purchase communication.
Don’t send them post-purchase messages asking the customer to buy flowers online when that customer just recently purchased a desktop computer. You could send him or her a relevant post-purchase communication on an item that may interest them based on their last purchase on your WooCommerce store such as a new desk stand frame or a new mouse pad or something.
Some of the popular plugins that can help you for timely & relevant post-purchase communication are:
2. Delivery Date & Delivery Time
The delivery date of ordered products from your WooCommerce online store is also another important factor in improving the customer post-purchase experience. By taking the orders from customers and also be able to deliver that order in time will improve greatly the post-purchase experience.
Cart abandonment is reduced by 50% simply by giving your customers an estimated delivery date or the option to choose a delivery date.
3. Invite Them To Join Your Loyalty Program
Loyalty programs are increasingly being used to improve the post-purchase experience in Ecommerce stores.
Loyalty programs always bring back customers to your online store. Think of it as a way of saying thank you to your customers.
Some of the popular plugins available for loyalty programs are:
- WooCommerce Points and Rewards
- WooCommerce Loyal Customers – 300+ active installs
- YITH WooCommerce Points and Rewards – 1000+ active installs
4. Ask Them For Product Or Services Reviews
Reviews are the first thing which customers check before buying. Whether you are booking a hotel room or buying flowers – your customer is going to glance at some recent reviews of your product.
Customers reviews and rating on WooCommerce online stores and websites play an important role in that it helps in improving search engine optimization (SEO) naturally.
Gathering reviews about your product & customer service will directly help in customer acquisition.
Some of the popular plugins available for collecting product reviews are:
- Review Builder – 1000+ active installs
- Rating-Widget – 10,000+ active installs
5. Send Customers Discount Codes For Their Next Purchase
Whether it’s 5% or 50% – we all love discounts. By offering discounts to your loyal customers during their next purchase, you are definitely on the driveway of improving that post-purchase experience that may have towards your WooCommerce online store or website.
Recently for our plugins, we implemented usage tracking for our Abandoned Cart Lite Plugin & Order Delivery Date Pro Plugin. We ask customers to allow us to track non-sensitive data that can help us improve our plugin. In return, we give them a 20% discount coupon on their next purchase from our store.
You should not miss any opportunity for giving discounts as well as make sure you do not overdo it.
Some of the popular plugins available for providing discount coupons to your customers are:
- WooCommerce Social Share Discount Coupon – 500+ active installs
- Pricing Deals for WooCommerce – 7000+ active installs
6. Customer Support Post Purchase
Unlike some businesses that simply disappear after customer purchases, you could tap into this by ensuring that you offer customers the support they need. This goes a long way in gaining their loyalty.
This is particularly important if you are a small business & competing with big businesses.
Small businesses have that extra edge to hustle, to get personal, to pick up the phone & talk to the customer without going through a chain of processes. Take advantage of that.
7. Post Purchase Surveys
Conducting a post-purchase survey is an important way of letting the customer know that you care about your product & services.
The post-purchase survey could ask the customers about questions like was the purchase experience smooth, did the item get delivered on time, was the item as described and any other suggestions or recommendations that they might be having after purchasing an item.
Such surveys provide an insight into the loop holes that you need to plug to increase your sales & improve customer experience.
One of the plugins that help in the post-purchase survey is:
After Sale Surveys – 70+ active installs
8. WooCommerce Post Purchase Email Newsletters
WooCommerce has a lot of 3rd party plugins that you could use to send email newsletters to your customers online. This, in turn, will ensure that you stay in constant communication with your customers and in return will earn you a better post-purchase experience from your customers.
It’s best if you email your customers once in a month or once in a fortnight. Don’t just email them when you need something.
And did you know the golden rule of email sending? Your email list should be opt-in. No spamming or sending to purchased email lists!
Some of the popular plugins available for sending newsletters are:
- Email newsletter plugin – 10,000+ active installs
- MailPoet Newsletters – 4,00,000+ active installs
9. Customer Incentives
You could choose to provide your customers with incentives offers so as to make them come back to your store.
These customer incentives could be in the form of reward points which they, in turn, will redeem during their next purchase.
One of the most popular plugins available for giving your customers incentives in form of rewards is:
10. Suggest Products That They Like
On your WooCommerce online store or website, be sure to provide products suggestions to your returning customers so that they may easily go for that new product that they probably did not see during their last online purchase.
WooCommerce has up-sells & cross-sells in-built. You can use these & mention them when the customer is browsing as well as shown the related products in the emails sent to customers.
One of the popular plugins available for giving product suggestions to the customers is:
Products Suggestions for WooCommerce – 100+ active installs
Conclusion:
As a WooCommerce store owner, you always need to make sure that your customers have a delightful experience when shopping on your website and also when interacting with you.
As a parting tip, you should ALWAYS aim to create customers for life & not just one-time.
