Introduction

Losing customers is a part of any business. Of course, no business likes to lose customers, but it’s accepted that some customers will be lost. Companies often account for such losses, but are all of these losses so necessary? This is the million dollar question.

Ecommerce

When it comes to the world of ecommerce, just like in the world of the the high street shops, some people will visit you and promptly leave for any number of reasons. Some may leave before they have even been labeled with the “customer” status. But all is not lost, there are many ways to try to keep customers and potential customers happily browsing and buying from you. With ecommerce, just like any other kind of business, make sure you are tending to the customers’ needs.

Four tips to avoid losing customers

One: Conduct an email campaign with a discount or coupon included

This won’t work for all businesses, but it will for many. I’m not big on filling out surveys -- the only ones I usually like are the ones I conduct on my own. But the few that I do get involved in that really draw me in are the ones that offer me something in return like a discount or coupon on a future purchase. You do that with your customers and you can gain some great demographic information and learn a lot about what your customer thinks about you and your product offering, while keeping them coming back for more because you just gave them something to use next time they need services like yours.

Two: Contact your long-term customers directly by phone

To make sure that you maintain that close personal relationship with your best customers, reach out to them by phone periodically. Talk to them about what you offer or are doing that they like, and what they would like to see changed. Ask them to be candid and let them know that you’re seriously interested in their honest feedback. Consider it sort of a ‘lessons learned’ session -- we all can use those from time to time.

Three: Analyze customer purchase trends

This is something you probably should be doing all along, but with smaller businesses run by one or two very busy people, it can be extremely difficult to set aside the time to do it right. What you need to do is select a time period -- maybe it’s the past six months, maybe a full year -- and see who your best customers are, where they’re coming from, what they are purchasing, how much they’re spending, etc.

Four: Make sure that your shop window is working

Make absolutely sure that your customers are not having difficulties with any slowness or errors on your website. Imagine if, for instance, your site has a problem with adding items to the shopping cart. A third party review of your website’s general functionality isn’t just useful -- it’s essential to the stability and growth of your business. Our FREE service can find and report functional errors on your site and also it can let you know about slow page loading issues or downtime. You have nothing to lose. Try us today!