3 Numbers to Watch If You Want to Keep Your Customers

You’re a-ok when your customers buy from you and are never heard from again, right? Of course not. Customers who come back again and again (and, ideally, tell their friends about your superb product and service) is your long-term goal. Reaching this goal is all about making sure that customers feel good about your brand throughout their journey with you — especially post-purchase. Here’s a rundown of the numbers you want to keep a sharp eye on to assess your success.

Know the costs of your WISMO and WISMR.

Your customer service team’s time is best spent solving complex issues instead of addressing “Where is my order?” (WISMO) or “Where is my return?” (WISMR) questions. If your team is getting a lot of these calls, your customers are letting you know that you need to take a good look at how you’re setting delivery and refund expectations, and whether you’re providing enough communication about status of their orders and returns. They’re also highlighting their frustration. Place these metrics high on your list of data to monitor. A large volume of WISMO or WISMR contacts wastes resources and is an easily solvable issue. By lowering your number of these calls, you free up your customer service team to focus on more high-value interactions — ones that can turn a negative situation into a delightful one and keep your buyers coming back for more.

Count on post-purchase engagement.

Is your customer hungry for your product to arrive or feeling meh? How often does she interact with your brand as she awaits delivery? Learning more about post-purchase engagement can show you how eager your customers are to receive their goods.

A branded tracking experience opens up additional marketing and branding touchpoints that carrier tracking pages cannot.

You can start off by looking at how many times on average your customers click through their order confirmation emails to access the tracking information, and then calculate the average number of click-throughs per order. This can give you an overall post-purchase engagement metric, but why stop there?A branded tracking experience opens up additional marketing and branding touchpoints that carrier tracking pages cannot. Load it up with your marketing assets based on your particular business goals to drive customers to your social media channels, download a mobile app, subscribe to a newsletter, RSVP to an event, or visit your website to shop a special collection. Use what you’ve learned to continue to do more of what works and optimize your tracking experiences to encourage more interactions across the entire customer journey.

The lifetime value of a customer.

Lifelong customers are the bedrock of any successful enterprise. Winning a customer in the first place is gold, but fostering a relationship with that customer so she keeps coming back is platinum. One way to know how well your company is driving loyalty is to take a look at your customer lifetime value (CLTV).

Winning a customer in the first place is gold, but fostering a relationship with that customer so she keeps coming back is platinum.

Central to any long-term business plan, your CLTV predicts how your retention efforts will (or won’t) work for you over time. It can inform your customer acquisition and retention strategies and budget allocation with more intelligence. Your CLTV shines a spotlight on the importance of the entire customer journey — a reminder that satisfying customers shouldn’t end after they check out.  To learn how to calculate these metrics, more numbers to watch and how you can improve them, download our ebook, 6 Ways to Measure Your Post-purchase Experience.