Technology is at a critical juncture with the advent of Gen AI and Quantum. This has enabled companies to chart a strategy to map human behavioral patterns during the buying process. These behavioral traits do not stop with buying but also carry to fulfillment, delivery, and reverse logistics. Understanding this impacts a consumer’s post-purchase journey and is of utmost importance to gain consumer loyalty.
Simplicity, trust, empathy, and follow-through are four foundational expectations that are on top of the consumer’s mind. These in turn trigger consumer behaviors and vary based on their culture, social environment, personal preferences, and psychological influences. Businesses have started mapping these to KPIs and metrics to understand the consumer better.
As you begin to improve your post-purchase process, establishing a competitive edge is key to customer satisfaction and loyalty. Enhanced loyalty programs, incentives such as future purchase discounts, regular product and discount communications, and a fast and no-hassle returns process are a few of the ways to improve customer loyalty resulting in repeat business.
As per a survey conducted by mytotalretail.com, 72% of shoppers in a recent poll said a positive returns experience will inspire them to buy again from the same retailer and 54% of retailers reported that they want a more effective returns process.
Simplicity and convenience
Consumers are looking for a seamless experience when they start their buying process. They want to get to product details and specifications quickly, pricing information indicating discounts and incentives, the product availability, and recommendations on alternate products for comparison. They want this experience to be easy, streamlined with minimal button clicks, intuitive and contextual so that they can make well-informed decisions. They want to complete the process with a one-step checkout that takes them through all aspects of the order capture like product selection, pricing and discounting, shipping options and payment capture.
Personalization
It’s important to provide a personalized touch as you build the customer connection through the order buying process. Giving consumers visibility to their previous purchases across all channels has been seen as a quick wins in initiating a sale. Consumer wants content tailored and displayed to their personal tastes and preferences. Consumers are expecting to use self-service mode to browse assortments, get recommendations, look at personalized payments options, flexible fulfillment methods. In addition, consumers also want to have an interactive customer support experience if they have questions about product or their order.
Trust
One of the ways that you gain consumer’s trust is through proactive communication about their order from buy to delivery. A survey by the Narvar team found that 81% of consumers agree that receiving proactive updates on their order status is a critical factor in deciding whether to buy again.  Also, 80% want to be proactively informed even if to tell them about a delay in their delivery. Accurate delivery date is another key aspect in not only reducing customer service calls, but also build trust in consumer leading to repeat business. On time delivery of products and value-added services like installation services has shown to drastically improve customer satisfaction.
Empathy
Many a times consumers are calling customer service if they are facing an issue. For example, there might be a payment decline or they don’t know the status of their order. Consumers feel valued when they are provided proactive communications, active listening, real time interactive problem resolution and extending options like appeasements, credits and instant refunds.
Follow-through
The commitment to the consumer does not end at delivery. A simple personalized follow up message signals an enhanced customer experience. Consumers also expect a streamlined return process and easy a replacement or exchange process. Businesses can bring additional value through short surveys and feedback about their buying experience.
Conclusion
Understanding the consumer’s buying traits, cultural, social and personal preferences are important considerations when building post-purchase journeys. Following through re-enforces the enhanced customer experience that directly translates into higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Contact our subject matter experts to discuss and implement these strategies for sustained customer loyalty.
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