Retailers that monitor customer retention and analyse its fundamental drivers, have a leg up on the competition.
With the increased pressure for companies to understand their customers better and deliver services to measure up to their expectations, it’s no wonder so many of our conference delegates come to our events to find out what are the best ways to implement customer behaviour tracking solutions.
I decided to investigate this increasingly popular area because examining actual behaviour is much more insightful than asking people how they behave. To market/engage effectively today, you have to understand how your potential customers are behaving online. A home delivery service tracking system has become extremely important for online retailers.
By using promotions, membership programs, customer relationships programs and other marketing techniques managers can motivate customers to continue doing business with the company which results in improved customer retention rate. Also, past customer behaviour is a good indicator for the future so any changes in customer behaviour can be identified by using appropriate marketing tools and consequently efficient and effective actions can be developed and implemented by the company.
If you sell your products online you can easily track the activity on your website using Google Analytics or, in more detail, with Piwik stats. I recommend keeping an eye on:
- New vs Returning visitors
- Number of visits per week/month
- Referral sources. This can indicate various websites you should build a closer relationship with or if you should optimise your website better
- Bounce rate – keep this as low as possible
- Shopping cart abandons – is their number higher than that of completed purchases?
- What the customer journey looks like. Have a look at a few examples for people that have completed their purchase and compare it with that of people who left your website during the process.
- Carry out online surveys about the home delivery service experience.
So how do you actually implement these things? You need one person in your company (preferably your website manager) who knows how to put in a one-off code from Google Analytics into your website HTML code. The same goes for Piwik. Then rest back and observe, listen, identify patterns and be one step ahead of your customer’s needs to increase their engagement and custom. Make sure you also follow up your customers to rate your home delivery service.
As I always say, monitor, ask for feedback and don’t be afraid to adapt to changing environments. Please leave any questions below or on Twitter and I will get back to you asap.
Sources: blogs.terrapinn.com, entrepreneur.com, just-ask-kim.com, mrdashboard.com
Devan Devaroyan – Smart Express Founder, interested in social media and internet business growth, mobile developments and home delivery, logistics and supply chain developments.
I will be posting interesting articles I find on these subjects and will be happy to discuss any of them with you. Feel free to add your comments.
