Things were hard enough when you only had to worry about keeping foot traffic coming in through your physical store. The rapid rise of e-commerce competitors and online behemoths like Amazon seemed to make things even harder. Figuring out how to achieve customer satisfaction seems daunting when you don’t have a customer satisfaction process and need largely to improve customer service in stores. Plus, now customers have more options than ever.
What can you do to keep them coming back to you? What strategies can you employ in keeping your brand at the top of their mind when they’re in the mood for new home furnishings? The task’s not nearly as impossible as it seems.
These five tactics in many ways mirror the things you did before the days of online shopping. They’re just adapted to fit the current digital space in which we now exist. Use them to give customers something they’re not going to get anywhere else.
1. Let Customers See Your Value
Customers want to get the best deal they can no matter how they shop. That doesn’t mean they’re willing to settle for poorly made products. Let them know what your product will do for them. That means doing more than reciting facts and figures from a sales sheet. It’s a good tactic for companies looking for ways on how to achieve customer satisfaction.
Here are some ways to put these ideas into action.
- Show them how they benefit – Give customers the ability to see how their purchase will benefit them in the end. Tools like MicroD’s 3-D Room Planner gives visitors a vision of how a furnishing will enhance their living space.
- Be there after the sale – Help shoppers feel your presence once they’ve finalized their purchase. Try sending a personalized follow-up email asking about their satisfaction with their experience. Let them know you’re there to resolve any issues they come across.
- Give them something competitors can’t – Keep an eye on the strategies employed by your competitors. Try to build yourself up in the areas where they come up short. Emphasize how you’re filling this gap to your customers.
Customers also care about your impact on your local community. Let customers know more about things like the care you take in finding quality furnishings or what you do for charities in your areas.
2. Personalizing Your Visitor’s Shopping Experience
You’re missing a big opportunity on how to achieve customer satisfaction retention if you’re unable to answer the following questions.
- What are visitor’s looking for when they visit your store or website?
- Do you make it easy for them to find it?
- How much do you understand about their shopping patterns?
Shoppers who have purchased from you before are 50% more willing to take a chance on new products you bring in. They’re also willing to spend up to 31% more than new shoppers.
Learning more about them helps you maintain an edge in a market dominated by places like Amazon. MicroD can help configure your site to collect critical analytical data on the following:
- How visitors move around your site
- The most popular landing pages
- Where most of your traffic comes in from (PPC ads, Facebook)
- Which coupon discounts get used the most
Go further by coming up with promotions rewarding them for their loyalty. Offer them a percentage off their next purchase or keep them informed of when you have a new sale coming up. Research shows that 51% of shoppers desire regular notification of discounts.
MicroD can show you how to leverage this data and come up with more effective digital marketing campaigns. They can also help you create better discounts and promotions for products targeted at specific audiences.
Visitors will only receive communication-related to things they find appealing. Taking this type of care with customers creates a sense of loyalty and makes you their top choice when they’re in the market for furniture upgrades.
3. Ask For and Respond to Customer Feedback
We touched on this earlier in our section on showing customer worth. Take this further by actively soliciting advice from your visitors on different aspects of your business. Make it easier to ask for this feedback by providing them with opportunities to sign up for lists or download brochures about products in which they’ve shown an interest.
You can create quizzes and surveys to send out after a purchase. Ask questions like the examples listed below to gain better insight into improving your internal business processes. It’s a great method employ for companies searching for ideas on how to achieve customer satisfaction.
- Did the product meet your expectations?
- What part of your experience did you enjoy the most?
- Did we have the expected variety of options in our inventory?
- Was there an item you were looking for we didn’t have in stock?
- Did the product arrive on time?
- How informed did you feel about the product you bought?
Leave space on your product page for visitors to comment directly. Make it a priority to have someone go through these comments and provide personal responses to each one. They should get one whether it’s a simple “It’s great!” or something more involved relating to difficulties they had with the shopping process.
4. Leverage Social Media to Your Advantage
Your social media outlets offer you an opportunity to build up a community of engagement with your employees. Her you can show them the personal side of your business. Shoppers also get the chance to interact with other customers and provide candid commentary you can use to come up with fresh ideas for your business.
Another idea often ignored by many physical retailers is engaging local social influencers in promoting your products. Why not have them come down to the store and highlight items appealing to their audience? You can also have them tag along as you host a local event and provide live commentary.
5. Educate Your Customers
Shoppers will continue returning to brands they trust. You can encourage this by being transparent about things like who makes your furniture and the products used to build them. 94% of shoppers show more loyalty to companies willing to expose their inner workings. Customers also gain up to 9% more trust in a brand after reading more in-depth information about the company.
The impact of the first visit to a website can’t be understated. It makes all the difference in the world how easy you make it for customers to dive in and find relevant information. You’re more likely to get repeat visits and prevent churn from dissatisfied users who decide to go elsewhere for their needs.
You Don’t Need to Go It Alone
Keeping your website and social media optimized for customer retention takes time and energy. MicroD can pick up the slack in managing efforts around how to achieve customer satisfaction. You’re freed up to take care of other areas of your business. Let us show you how we can improve the impact of your ecommerce website with personalized online shopping for your visitors.