7 Strategies to Improve Your Customer’s Post Purchase Experience

If you want a happy customer base, you need to establish a strong post-purchase experience. People are far more interested in engaging with brands that pay attention to their needs and actively work to build rapport with them after they place an order. 

When you think about it, this makes perfect sense. Customers don’t want to feel forgotten as soon as they hit “buy” on your website. Instead, they want to feel like they belong and they are a part of something bigger. 

Businesses across all industries, from email marketing SaaS to pet supply eCommerce stores, are aware of this sentiment. So, it makes sense that this type of support has become top-of-mind for many marketers and business leaders.

Today, we will go over the benefits of post-purchase support and share 7 actionable strategies you can use to create the best experience possible for your customers. 

Benefits of Post-Purchase Support 

Let’s start by answering the question that’s probably on your mind: “What are the benefits of adding post-purchase support to my current marketing strategy?”

We are glad you asked! Here’s a list of solid reasons everyone reading this article should invest in this strategy.

  • Build your reputation – You do not want to be known as the business that “ghosts” your customers as soon as they pay. We’ve all had this experience at one point or another. You buy something and have a problem with your order. So, you reach out for support only to find the customer service less than acceptable. This is a surefire way to keep people away from your business and damage your reputation. 
  • Encourage repeat sales – Since you’re going to have an awesome reputation due to your post-support strategy, there’s a pretty good chance your customers will come back for repeat orders. According to Forbes, 81% of people say they’re more likely to make multiple orders if they get great service on day one. 
  • Improve brand loyalty – If people buy from you multiple times and have a great experience each time, they’re more likely to feel a sense of loyalty toward your company. I bet there’s at least one company you shop with regularly because of their top-notch product and support. 
  • Build social proof – When people feel loyal to your brand, they’re more likely to tell others on social media and leave positive reviews, which you need,  on your website. Not only is this a great way to build trust with new visitors, but it also leads us back to square one; this will help you build your reputation over time!

Now that you know how developing a post-support strategy can help you and your customers, let’s go over some of the tips that will help you make this possible. 

Personalize Your Interactions

The first tip we want to cover broadly applies to everything we will discuss afterward, and it’s to personalize post-purchase interactions.

If you want to know why, consider this: 4 out of 5 shoppers say they’re more likely to engage with a brand that goes out of its way to personalize content, offers, and messages. This is one of those things that just make sense if you think about it. 

There are so many different companies out there that essentially sell the same thing. Personalization is what sets companies apart. Even if three different companies are personalizing their messaging, there’s a pretty good chance each interaction will be unique. 

One of the best ways to kick off this strategy is to thank customers for placing an order. Use their name and the product they purchased in the email. This seemingly simple gesture will go a long way toward helping you build that first spark of rapport. 

Here’s a great example from Home Alive Pets:

Image Source: Really Good Emails

Develop a Detailed Onboarding Program

Customer onboarding is a very important part of every journey. If people don’t know how to unlock the full value of their recent purchase, they are far more likely to feel dissatisfied. 

In our experience, this is particularly important if you want to sell digital products like software, subscriptions, and online courses. 

Ideally, a customer in this situation should get a thank you email and an onboarding email right after. This is where you can introduce your product and show people how to take advantage of various features that will help them get the most from their order. 

For example, marketing software may include an onboarding video that goes over their product dashboard so users understand what everything is and how it will help them on their journey. 

Offering a user-friendly onboarding program will help create a welcoming user experience that will ultimately improve satisfaction and customer retention.  

Below, you can see Zapier’s approach to onboarding: 

Image Source: Really Good Emails

Ask for Feedback

Now, let’s talk about how asking for feedback can help you create a better post-purchase experience. 

We’d be willing to bet, at one point or another, that you’ve decided to reach out to a brand to share your thoughts on their products, customer service, or something else. Well, there’s a pretty good chance your customers have these same thoughts. 

Instead of hoping they’ll come to you, take the initiative and gather feedback early by reaching out to customers and asking them to share their thoughts. You can use this information to improve your business in countless ways. 

For example, let’s say a majority of people think your onboarding program is difficult to understand. While this might not be the best news, it would give you a chance to go in and fix it so you can create a better customer experience for current and future customers. 

You can also use this opportunity to ask them to leave reviews on your site. Since 99% of people read reviews before they buy something online, it’s not hard to see why taking this step can help you attract new customers while building rapport with existing users. 

Image Source: Really Good Emails

Give Them Something Extra

We bet you’re more likely to engage with a company in the future if they occasionally give you something extra every once in a while. It could be a limited-time discount, access to a subscribers-only webinar, a free gift, or something else entirely.

Either way, there’s no questioning the value of giving your customers something special after they’ve placed an order.

If you’re personalizing your emails – and you should be – you can use this opportunity to offer them things that are related to things they’ve purchased in the past. For instance, a pet supply store could offer people who’ve purchased cat food a free cat toy with their next purchase. 

These seemingly small gestures go a long way toward building rapport with your customers and boosting sales

Below, you can see how Barista & CO give discounts to their customers: 

Image Source: Really Good Emails

Encourage People to Join You on Social Media

Did you know that as of July 2024, it’s estimated that 63.7% of the global population uses social media? This statistic highlights why it’s more important than ever before to get your customers to join you on social media. 

There are plenty of ways you can work this strategy, depending on your resources and long-term marketing goals. 

One way to go about it is to start a community with a group feature like what you may have seen on Facebook. Invite customers to join your community so they can meet other customers, engage with your business, and learn about upcoming products and events. 

Sometimes, that’s all you need to do!

But if you want to take it a step further, you can take a play out of Youth to the People’s playbook and direct users to a giveaway landing page where customers can win in-store credit or compelling prizes by taking specific actions. For instance, you could ask users to check out your latest post or subscribe to you on a social platform where you’re trying to grow. 

Not only will this strategy help spread brand awareness, but it will also give existing customers a reason to keep engaging with your brand.

Image Source: Really Good Emails

Launch a Loyalty Plan

Loyalty programs are an excellent way to improve your retention rate. They give your customers a reason to keep shopping with you because they’re rewarded every time they make a purchase. 

The best part is there are so many ways to start a customer loyalty program. This means that brands across all industries can take advantage of this highly effective strategy, regardless of what they sell. 

Some of the more common loyalty programs give customers cash back in the form of store credit for every dollar they spend. In other words, at the end of each order, people accrue store credit that they can use later. Since they’re bound to spend more than just the credit they earned on a purchase, they’ll spend more and earn more loyalty points with their next order. 

Another way to put this strategy into action is to encourage existing customers to join a referral program. This strategy is particularly helpful for software companies. Basically, an existing customer can save on their subscription for every person they get to try your product. 

We like this strategy because it helps you grow your customer base while building loyalty with people who’ve shopped with you for quite some time. 

Let’s look at an example of a good loyalty program introduction from Fleet Feet so you can see what a post-purchase loyalty email might look like:

Image Source: Really Good Emails

Invest in a Customer Success Team

Finally, we encourage every business to start a customer success team, even if it’s only a couple of people. 

Put plainly, customer success teams reach out to customers after a set amount of time post-sale, though this part can be automated through a drip campaign. The email invites customers to ask questions, share concerns, or meet with a representative for a hands-on tutorial.

The important thing is you have someone there to quickly respond to an email when a customer writes back. You’ll want to use this opportunity to show them that, as the name implies, you’re interested in helping them find success. 

A customer success team can help your business win customers over by providing top-notch support, reducing friction, and creating an all-around better experience. 

Image Source: Influno

There you have it! As you can probably tell by now, there are a ton of great ways to improve your customers’ post-purchase experience. 

If you’re not implementing any of these strategies yet, we suggest starting with general personalization and branching out one piece at a time. Before you know it, you’ll have a loyal customer base who is more than happy to tell others why you’re the best in the business!


About the Author

Syed Balkhi is the founder of WPBeginner, the largest free WordPress resource site. With over 10 years of experience, he’s the leading WordPress expert in the industry. You can learn more about Syed and his portfolio of companies by following him on his social media networks. LinkedIn