In business the goal is to acquire a customer and then retain them for as long as possible. Any business that focuses on one time customers is in danger of becoming extinct.
So how do you go about building retention for your customers so that they keep coming back to you again and again?
You simply… delight them.
That’s right!
You make it your business to offer a wonderful customer experience that gives them that warm fuzzy feeling when they purchase from you. You delight them with a great experience that makes them look forward to purchasing from your store again.
You need to strive going above and beyond to create and deliver an impeccable shopping experience that leaves a powerful impression on your buyers. When your customers feel appreciated, they are driven to return to your business and continue making further purchases.
So in today’s post, I want to help you build long-lasting customer relationships. I’ll break down what customer delight is all about and offer 11 examples of how you can start wowing your buyers.
Customer delight simply means to deliver a fantastic user experience for people in an effort to create and nurture lasting relationships. You have to go above and beyond your customer service. You need to be thinking outside of the box. Delighting customers usually happens through the use of gifts, rewards, personal communication, contributing to a worthy cause, delivering valuable surprises that wow your customer base.
The list goes on.
Let’s dive into the various ways you can delight your customers and have them excited to purchase from you not just once.. but multiple times over their lifetime.
Use Branded Boxing
As I touched on in the introduction, delivering customer delight is all about creating outstanding experiences for your customers. One way of doing this is through the use of branded packaging. If you don’t already use branded packaging or boxes for your products, it’s worth a try.
The whole unboxing experience has the potential to go viral in the right situations, especially as photo and video sharing sites like Instagram, Snapchat & even TikTok continue to grow in popularity among savvy consumers of all ages. I see more and more unboxing videos posted online from micro influencers and normal folks who love to share their unboxing experience with their friends and family.
Like opening presents at Christmas time, the unboxing experience from a brand that does a good job of their packing can trigger a customer delight experience.
If you can afford it, it’s a worthwhile test to run for your ecommerce business. A little extra effort and attention can go a long way in the minds of your customers. It gets them talking about positive experiences to other shoppers and can lead to customer referrals.
Include a Handwritten Thank You Note
We just talked about the idea of branded packaging to deliver a feeling of customer delight. What you can include within that branded packaging is to include a handwritten thank you note.
We live in an age of automation and personal touch is being sacrificed because of this. A little personalization can go along way to delivering a delightful customer experience and make you stand out from your competitors.
So what should you do to deliver this type of experience?
Every time a first-time customer buys a product from you, send them a handwritten card thanking them for their business. You can even include an incentive to purchase from you again with a time sensitive coupon code.
This is a powerful way to express your appreciation for their business and it’s a great way to make a great first impression on your newest customers. It really sets the tone of the relationship and can do a great job of setting up the customer journey in a positive light… making it easier to nurture the relationship.
Social Media Customer Shout Out
Make your customers famous and apreciated by posting up on your social media. This won’t cost you anything, is a piece of content you don’t have to worry about and will do wonders for showing how you care about your customer base.
All you gotta do is randomly select one customer that has purchased from you in the last week and write up an appreciation thank you post. Be sure to include their user handle within your post so they are tagged as this drives attention to the post. There will be a high probability they thank you back and comment about how much they like the product they purchase.
They get a cool shout out from within the brands community, you get positive social proof so it’s a nice win win for both customer and brand. This is another great way to deliver a delightful experience.
Deliver An Out of The Blue Surprise To A Random Customer
Ok this is a good one! One of my favourite ways to delight a customer. Some may think it’s a little creepy and some may see this as a clever way in delivering “out of the box” customer delight for customers.
When you do this correctly, you’ll generate an awesome customer experience and potentially create some great user generated content that shows you up for how “cool” your brand is at delivering customer delight. Oh… and lets not forget how the social engagement that comes with it too.
Here’s what you do…
Find out what one of your most recent customers is posting up on their social media. You can do this through a social media monitoring tool like Hootsuite. If you see an opportunity to send a special gift to a customer based on something you see in one of their tweets for example, go for it!
Let me give you an example of this –
Let’s say that you notice one of your customers post up on their social media about getting excited to see a new show coming to their hometown. This is your opportunity to go above and beyond and delight this particular customer for tickets to the show + dinner for two at a local restaurant.
When you send them the tickets and a voucher for dinner at a local restaurant, within your message, you can mention that you noticed their desire to check out the show and that you felt the necessity to spoil one of your customers with a surprise like this.
This will blow their minds and the positive associations you’ll receive online will be fantastic
for your brand.
This really is another excellent way of delivering customer delight. Give it a try and see how it works out for your brand.
Follow Up With Positive Comments About Your Brand
What happens here… is that when you have a customer that has made a positive comment about your brand, don’t miss the opportunity to respond and engage with them! It’s important to remember that when it comes to communicating publicly on social media, you’re not just talking to one person, you’re talking to many.
Because as you respond and show your appreciation for the nice comment you’ve received, your comment is public and others will see the positive communication between both parties.
Having genuine communication with prospects and customers on public social media is not only a great way to build loyalty and encourage repeat business, it’s also a fantastic way to convey good first time impressions with potential customers. As they read positive communications like this and see how you conduct yourself with prospects and customers, you’ll build more of a liking and develop more trust with prospects.
This type of branding could be the difference between doing business with you or your competitors.
Send a Personalized Email From You the Owner
Another simple way to delight and surprise your customers is by sending them an important, personalized message from the CEO/Owner of your ecommerce business.
As a new customer receiving an email from the owner of the brand, this really helps to show appreciation for a customer’s business and makes them feel even better about their decision to purchase from your brand over the other options in the marketplace. This type of customer nurturing that starts with a thank you note from a significant member of the brand, can really present a feeling of importance and value from the new customer. This feeling of appreciation can encourage strong retention over time, leading to a healthy lifetime value on your customers.
All you need to do here is send a plain-text, personalized thank you email that comes from the CEO as soon as someone becomes a customer. You could also send a personalized email from the CEO when you want to announce the launch of new products or special campaigns.
ProTip: Why not add more value in the form of a coupon code for their next purchase, or an ebook or video course to help get the best use out of your product. Or educate your customers via digital content on how to solve common problems in the marketplace.
Now this personalization tactic may not be feasible for all ecom brands as there just might be too much work involved to send out personalized email to new customers from the other.
To combat this personalization issue, you can always use tools like Campaign Monitor, MailChimp, or Klaviyo that allow you to create automated emails that appear to be delivered manually from an individual. This will save you a ton of time and help you to deliver another way to delight your customers and help to build positive associations for new customers of your brand.
Commit To a Worthy Cause
You may have noticed this a lot over the last number of years, but a lot of ecommerce brands are now using their brand and the profits it generates from its customers to combat social issues around the world.
One of the most common brands that uses its profits to combat a social issue is TOMS. As an ecommerce brand, you can also contribute to a social issue.
In today’s consumer market, your customers don’t just want to receive value for their money. They also want to support companies that are willing and interested in helping make the world a better place. Delight your customers by supporting a cause that you care about, or one that aligns closely with the type of product you sell.
This can be another great way to delight your customers and show that you are more than just a brand that sells apparel, electronics, beauty products or whatever… but that you care about making the world a better place. People want to be part of something bigger than themselves and partner with a trusted source that align with their values.
Have a think about what your brand can do to make a positive difference in the world. For example, if you sell vegan beauty products, perhaps a percentage of your profits go towards an animal welfare charity.
Blog About A Customer Testimonial
I like this idea of customer delight. Here’s how it works…
If you offer to feature a customer on your blog, this can be another great way to deliver on customer delight & nurture your customer relationships.
Here’s what you need to do…
Find a customer who is getting the most out of what you offer and seeing positive results. You can reach out with a quick email that asks them about being featured on your blog or your company’s social media channels. This is a great way to show prospects and customers how well your products perform when being used to its fullest potential.
You’ll make the customer happy, give them an opportunity to talk about your product and explain the kind of positive results that can be achieved when using your product.
Don’t Forget About Using an Anniversary Gift
You know what’s cool?
When a brand makes a big deal out of reminding you when you last purchased.
Celebrating the anniversary of a sale shows your customers that their purchase truly matters to your brand. That purchase marked the beginning of a new stage in your relationship. They’ve gone through the process of seeking out your company, researching the competition, and decided that your offer was the best fit. When you acknowledge this fact it reminds the customer why they made that choice in the first place.
What does this lead to?
It develops a stronger bond between brand and customer… which can lead to more repeat business and building more brand advocates (customers that love you the most).
All this takes is a simple email to send to those that have bought from you in the last year. Thanking them for choosing you above your competitors. It’s up to you what to do in terms of a special anniversary gift. You could offer a coupon code, rewards points,a digital product or a free sample tester of a new product. Heck.. you can even do a combination of those suggestions.
Anniversary gifts and transaction reminders are a great way to build better customer retention and bring delight to your customers.
Position Yourself As a Problem Solving Expert
Another awesome way to delight your prospects and customers is by positioning your brand as the expert when it comes to solving your markets most common problems. Your product most likely does one of two things –
- It alleviates pain
- It delivers pleasure
You know how your product works better than anyone. It’s easy to delight your customers by providing the best solution for their problem.
But can you do more? Very possible!
You can do this by curating a list of similar products or services that can help your customers grow and acquire even better results than what they are currently experiencing. What this does is position you as the expert on the subject matter.
Offer advice on things like –
- Product Recommendations
- Product Demonstrations on how to get a result
- Service recommendations you might also offer
Your staff, customers and even you as the face front of the brand can integrate into this customer delight system in order to create product and service recommendation value. You can publish this type of content on your social media doing, stories, posts and even “going live” on social media if you wish. Don’t forget your email lists and chatbots with this type of content.
Include a Loyalty Program
Perhaps a more common option is the idea of introducing a loyalty program to develop customer delight. I highly recommend a loyalty program for your shopping brand because done correctly, these programs can not just bring excitement, delight and a feeling of appreciation from your customers… but they also do a great job of encouraging sales and developing long periods of retention.
In basic terms, the more your customers shop with you, the more reward they receive from your brand. Earning more points = special perks. It’s a great tactic for driving repeat business and boosting customer loyalty. Tools you can use to set your program up: Sweet Tooth, Collect Loyalty For Shopify and Signpost.
Some great examples of loyalty programs come from brands like – Sephora, Gilt, Nike, Shein to name a few.
