With Henrique Dutra, Senior Product Marketing Manager, and Brianna Moreno, Vice President of Customer Experience
The research has spoken: Nurturing existing customers is more cost-effective than winning over new ones. Even a meager 5% retention improvement can drive profits up by over 25%.
It’s no wonder, then, that more and more companies in eCommerce and beyond are shifting their focus to customer retention strategies — especially in the treacherous waters of the current economic climate, with inflation holding back demand and consumers more focused than ever on saving rather than spending.
However, there are many paths to staving off customer churn and securing customer loyalty, and it can be tricky to know where to begin. That’s why Unbabel’s Senior Product Marketing Manager, Henrique Dutra, and True Classic’s Vice President of Customer Experience, Breanna Moreno, sat down to discuss the most impactful customer retention tactics and how to implement them.
Here are some key highlights and actionable tips we collated from the full webinar, “True Classic’s Tips to Increasing Customer Retention Rates.” Let’s dive in.
The three main threads of a personalized customer experience
Trusting agents to move the needle of customer loyalty
A well-rounded customer experience hinges on customer support teams that can anticipate the needs of the customer and go above and beyond simple support queries.
“That’s why we always try to offer clear touch points across the customer experience,” Moreno explains. “We make sure that the customer doesn’t have to confirm which product they’re reaching out about, or even which marketing flow they belong to — as our support teams have the history of their True Classic journey at their fingertips and can easily access this information. This approach not only improves the quality of the service we provide, but it also has a positive impact on our turnaround times and creates cohesiveness between marketing and support.”
“(…) Our support teams have the history of our customers’ True Classic journey at their fingertips and can easily access this information. This approach not only improves the quality of the service we provide, but it also has a positive impact on our turnaround times and creates cohesiveness between marketing and support.”
– Breanna Moreno, VP of Customer Experience at True Classic
Solutions such as advanced tracking and analytics tools allow businesses to tailor their support and marketing efforts based on the customer’s behavior and preferences, meeting each customer’s unique needs proactively. They can be extremely effective in boosting customer engagement and brand loyalty.
Support teams, Moreno mentions, are also an invaluable source of insight into customers’ needs and pain points. “Our agents aren’t just our frontline,” she says. “They know our products and our customer base better than anyone. They’re essentially our heroes.” By providing them with the best tools to execute their job, companies like True Classic can create frictionless processes that offer employees a truly positive experience — which in turn leads to happy, loyal customers.
Leveraging automation to fashion custom experiences
“At True Classic, we’re always looking for ways to leverage automation to elevate human interactions,” Moreno reveals. “Right now, AI allows us to ensure our customer service is seamless and readily available, no matter where our customers are.”
Automation can help companies create a customer-centric experience that caters to all preferences and builds trust. “Based on their consumer profile, different customers may want to get in touch via email, chat, or phone,” she explains. “Some may prefer self-service solutions, others would rather talk in real-time to a customer support representative. As a business, it’s important to be able to pivot to accommodate them all — but being available everywhere 24/7 costs money and isn’t always possible. That’s where AI and automation come in.”
By freeing up agents to address more complex queries or follow up with customers who would rather have 1:1 interactions, automation can ensure a company consistently meets customer expectations and keeps churn rates in check.
On top of that, AI provides businesses with transparent, in-depth data from all facets of their operations — Product, Marketing, and Support — and helps better inform business decisions. “We know humans aren’t going anywhere,” Moreno says. “AI doesn’t scare me at all: It just needs to be implemented right. Automation won’t replace us, it will enhance us. I’m excited to see how much more we can get done in less time.”
Giving customers a voice through data
At True Classic, Moreno discloses, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are built around one core principle: Efficiency. Any friction or customer feedback is carefully monitored and tagged within the company’s CRM, so that its impact can be seen clearly on the ticket dashboard. This data is collected and analyzed monthly, allowing the business to adapt its support strategy depending on query influx.
“Constantly looking at data is going to help you analyze your product and the level of service you provide. From quality issues to the number of customers searching for V necks on your website, every bit of information is relevant,” Moreno says. “When you have data, you’re giving your customer a voice, and you can easily funnel it up to your leadership.”
How to design marketing initiatives that fit like a glove
Beyond ensuring the efficiency of support teams, choosing the right tools, and making data-driven decisions, Dutra prompts, what are the marketing initiatives that make customers fall in love with True Classic?
“First of all,” Moreno says, “we relate to our customers. We love humor, for instance, and I think a lot of people resonate with that. But more than anything, we want to get to know our customer base — what they need, what their journey at True Classic feels like. Earning and building that trust is going to give us leverage to push new products, test new initiatives and trends.”
According to Moreno, True Classic’s aim is to become a safe space for new and current customers alike. That doesn’t happen just through loyalty programs, ads, and incentives — but through “understanding your audience, knowing who you’re selling to, and building a trusted brand.” From ordering a product to unboxing it, an effective marketing strategy is one that’s rooted in real customer data and sparks delight.
Beyond listening to customer feedback, including comments on social media, another True Classic tip is to adjust marketing flows based on where customers are in their customer journey. For instance, a customer who is experiencing an issue with delivery or needs to return an item won’t be as receptive to an email marketing campaign. That’s why marketing and support need to work in lockstep: It’s the foundation of an impactful, personalized customer experience.
“We don’t want to create any friction along the customer journey, so we need to make sure that we’re building a great customer relationship, where customer feedback is heard, its impact is measured, and the company can pivot or adjust its strategy based on it,” Moreno says. “For example, we initially included a subscription model. But after surveying our customers, we realized it wasn’t needed, as we were launching many new products and our subscribers were interested in purchasing more often — so we removed it. To this day, we still regularly survey our VIP group on Facebook to ask them what we can offer them. Having that dialog is a customer success game changer.”
The measuring tape of customer retention: Which metrics to focus on
Aside from conversion rates, CSAT scores, and Net Promoter Scores, there are other Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) companies should be paying attention to. It’s a two-pronged effort, says Moreno: Acquiring first-time customers is crucial, but so is securing repeat customers. And it’s definitely linked to agent performance.
“How does customer support impact our customers’ purchasing behavior? Does the repeat purchase rate or average order value (AOV) go up after consumers interact with our support team? The reason I’m looking at this kind of data is simple: It allows me to highlight how building trust through great support impacts customer retention rates, and, ultimately, the business’s bottom line.”
Other metrics to focus on are top-ticket trends; for example, if the main query is on returns and exchanges, it’s likely the information available on the website isn’t clear or easy to find and needs to be fine-tuned. Moreno also recommends running A/B tests with Google Analytics to collect information on which changes are bringing the best results.
“Business decisions always should be supported by data. That’s why at True Classic we pull a lot of analytics from our help desk and we keep track of so many different metrics through our Business Intelligence (BI) tool,” she concludes. “It’s something all companies should leverage, because there’s so much power in that.”
Curious to learn more about the threads that bind companies and customers together, or how to weave customer retention into the very fabric of your business? Explore other exclusive True Classic tips here:
