Leading consumer insight and global reviews giant Feefo has revealed in a recent survey of 2,000 shoppers the best ways for businesses to engage with customers post-purchase.
43% of consumers surveyed claimed that they liked to communicate directly with companies they buy from via email, receiving newsletters or updates containing special offers.
‘Today’s digital landscape is ever-changing and businesses have to meet the needs of their customers across the whole purchase journey in order to maintain sales and brand loyalty,’ claims Feefo’s Head of Digital, Richard Tank.
Feefo’s survey results indicate that brand loyalty is greatly under threat, as almost one-third of shoppers claim that they would switch to another brand or retailer if they had even one single negative experience with a company.
Getting an online customer to complete their transaction is also a challenge for retailers, with 79% abandoning their purchase before checking out and paying. A common reason for this is high shipping costs, which swayed 63% of consumers because it added more to their final total. The pressure is therefore on for retailers to correctly engage with their customers post-purchase in order to maintain valuable feedback that could lead to future sales and ongoing brand loyalty.
The survey also asked participants several questions relating to how they thought and behaved while buying items online, the frustrations they faced that made them angry or annoyed, customer service aggravations and what they thought of automated voice systems. 53% of those surveyed claimed that the biggest frustration of online shopping was not being able to find answers to questions they had about a product. 48% of consumers claimed that they would happily answer a couple of questions that popped up on a website if it resulted in a more enjoyable online shopping experience.
Customer pre-purchase behaviour was also highlighted in the survey, which revealed that 79% of online shoppers visit either Amazon (38%) or Google (41%) as the first port of call when making the decision to buy a product on an e-commerce site. 80% of respondents claimed that they consulted the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) section of a website, suggesting another way to deliver customer service and effectively communicate with your customers, without handholding.
‘While Google’s online monopoly on the web has long been documented, it’s clear that Amazon is now just as prominent as the search engine, even though it’s technically an online retailer,’ says Tank, who also added that although consumers may conduct initial research on sites like Amazon and Google, they may actually end up making their final purchases on other sites, thereby using these online giants purely for research purposes, without the intention to buy there and then.
The survey also revealed that 82% of shoppers consider price to be the most important factor when making an online purchase. Only 1 in 5 shoppers buy certain items for the sake of it or to impress other people.
