This post is going to highlight strategies to generate revenue from your existing customers.
Why? Because acquiring new customers can be expensive and very time-consuming. In fact, attracting new customers is approximately 5x more expensive than retaining existing customers.
That's why focusing on your existing customer base is a quicker, cheaper, and more effective revenue generating strategy.
Here's some proven strategies to increase revenue from existing customers:
- 1. Create a customer loyalty program
- 2. Ensure a memorable first purchase experience
- 3. Upsell and cross-sell additional products or services
- 4. Integrate live chat support
- 5. Provide superior customer service
- 6. Prove your brand are the experts
- 7. Remarket your target audience
- 8. Be a customer-centric organization
- 9. Survey customers properly
Let's get started.
1. Create a customer loyalty program
Loyal customers should be rewarded appropriately for being long-term advocates of your brand. By creating a customer loyalty program you'll incentivize repeat customers to come back and purchase more.
Rewarding your customers establishes a relationship that influences their purchase decisions. Your brand becomes their "go-to" for a specific product or service you offer.
A great example of a customer loyalty program is JetBlue's TrueBlue rewards system.
Here's how it generates revenue from existing customers:
- Rewards airline fliers with points
- Points can be accumulated through using JetBlue's airline or branded credit card
- Members are placed into tiers based on points gained
- Incentivized to continue using JetBlue in order to earn rewards
- Points can be shared and combined with up to 7 friends or family members
- These points can only be redeemed through JetBlue (or select partners)
This gives existing customers a reason to stick with a brand and continue to purchase items from a company.
Now you can see how customer loyalty programs can increase revenue from existing customers much easier than trying to gain new ones.
2. Ensure a memorable first purchase experience
When it comes to first impressions, there’s no second chance, so make sure they count. Always try to surpass your customers’ expectations.
Here are some ways to make a customer’s first purchase special:
- Welcome email: When customers first register, send a personalized email welcoming them as a new customer. Mention in the email why doing business with you will be special.
- Special offers: This is a popular trend in ecommerce. Customers feel positive about a site offering a discount, or a little something extra with the first purchase. If they are happy, they’re more likely to come back and buy again.
- Personalize: Try not to sound overly formal in emails. Keep them personalized. It’s also advisable to avoid using “Do Not Reply” emails. Email is the chief tool for communicating with customers.
How many times have you purchased another product or service from a company because of a great first purchase experience?
That brand just made you a repeat customer.
3. Upsell and cross-sell products or services
Your existing customer base is the perfect opportunity to upsell and cross-sell additional products or services.
Since you've already obtained them as a customer, the harder part is over. There is now an established relationship between the customer and your brand. This is where upselling and cross-selling comes in.
- Upselling is the suggestion to purchase a more expensive upgraded version of your product or service they've initially bought or used.
- Cross-selling is the suggestion of different additional products or services that relate to their original purchase.
Because they're existing customers of your brand, they are more likely to purchase these upsells or cross-sells.
This increases revenue from existing customers as well as higher profit margins.
4. Integrate live chat support
Have you ever considered adding a live chat option to your site? When implemented right, a live chat service can do so much more than just offering quick and painless customer service—boosting conversions, return visitors, and revenue.
The best thing about live chat is just how efficient it is at helping customers, with almost 73 percent customer satisfaction.
Almost 62% of online shoppers agreed that they would have purchased more items from an online store if live customer support had been available.
Users prefer live chat for a number of reasons, a quick response being chief among them.
The ability to chat with your company reps in real-time helps retain customers by creating a solid customer experience.
Whether an existing customer has doubts about the durability of a product, or is stuck with making a decision, live chat software offers a ton of benefits.
5. Provide superior customer service
Customer service is the backbone of any ecommerce company.
According to one survey, conducted by Right Now Technologies; 89% of shoppers have stopped buying from online stores after they’ve experienced poor customer service.
Terrible customer service will not only stop a customer from making another transaction, but it will also encourage them to write the negative feedback about your site on social media. And bad word of mouth is no less than evil for an e-commerce site.
Below are the various ways to provide your existing customers with amazing customer service:
A) Track all customer interactions:
Tracking all customer interactions helps to reduce time wastage for both your agents and customers. It also helps agents resolve issues more easily.
B) Listen to your customers on social media:
According to desk.com, 46% of online customers expect brands to provide customer service on Facebook. Social media reduces the gap between customer and seller.
C) Focus on timely responses:
Whether it’s an email, chat or social media conversation, customers expect faster responses. Act quickly to win over existing customers and make them trust you even more.
6. Prove your brand are the experts
By answering existing customer's questions accurately and professionally, you appear as the experts and trusted resource they can always turn to.
Not only does this help improve customer satisfaction rates, but it proves to customers that your company knows what they're talking about.
Trust is a super valuable trait when it comes to generating revenue from existing customers. When a customer believes your company is the real deal, they tend to stick with your brand over your competitors.
Your knowledge base allows customers to search through your help articles without the need to talk with a live person. It demonstrates to your existing customers that your company is focused 100% on support and service rather than selling a product or service.
When knowledge base articles appear online, they prove your expertise to all users searching for similar solutions and spread brand awareness.
Existing customers are more likely to stick with your company as they see your presence on the internet more than your competitors. This influences them to continue buying your products or services as other alternatives don't seems like the experts.
7. Remarket your target audience
Remarketing involves sending offers and incentives to consumers after they have interacted or purchased with your brand. It's one of the most effective customer engagement strategies your company can apply.
Remarketing is useful for reminding customers you still hold value for them, and that they’re equally important to you even after purchase. Generally speaking, email is the best method. But you can also do remarketing through push notifications, or SMS, or online advertising.
If you can encourage consumers to sign up for newsletters and emails, remarketing can be tremendously effective in generating revenue from existing customers. But make sure not to overdo it. Lots of unnecessary emails and notifications can irritate the customer. A proper email strategy is needed.
8. Be a customer-centric organization
Demonstrating that your organization is customer-centric shows that you value your customers and are willing to put them first.
A customer-centric organization involves:
- Listening to customers
- Following up on feedback
- Being proactive
- Feeling empathetic to customer problems
- Respecting customer privacy
- Providing help articles
- Training employees on customer service
- Improving the customer experience
- Adapting to customer demands
When existing customers feel they are valued and important, they tend to leave fantastic reviews of your company. This also helps the purchase decision of potential customers in the future as most first-time buyers read online reviews before choosing a product or service.
Now your generating revenue from existing customers through their influence on future buyers.
9. Survey customers properly
Customer feedback in incredibly important when it comes to finding out how they view your product, service, or company as a whole.
In order to do so, you have to survey customers properly, here's how:
- Find out which customer service metrics need to be gathered
- Determine your survey approach (comments or ratings)
- Agree on a suitable length of questions
- Distribute to your existing customers
- Analyze customer data for insights
- Take action
Once you obtain data from your surveys, it's time to creation an actionable plan to improve customer satisfaction.
Use this as an opportunity to show your existing customers that your company puts them first. Doing so will boost trust, show good will, and lead to a continued relationship with your repeat customers.
The more a customer trusts your brand, the more of a benefit it has to your business's success.
Listen and learn
Every business has the potential to grow or fail— a single step can make or break your business. Successful companies constantly evolve by listening to their customers’ demands and feedback. Then modifying their sales, products, processes and strategies to fulfill a continually shifting model.
By following the tactics above, ecommerce companies can succeed in generating revenue from existing customers.
We want to hear from you, which revenue generating strategy does your business focus on? How does your business increase revenue from existing customers?
Let us know in the comments.