Brands put in a lot of effort to get customers to transact with them. After all, it is the main goal of any business. But what happens beyond that? This is where after-sales engagement comes into play. And it is more important than you might expect. Here is how you can get a strong start in doing it.
Why After-Sales Engagement Matters
As you already know, after-sales engagement refers to the interaction of your brand with customers past their purchases. The goal of this engagement is to foster continued relationships with customers. It also aims to establish long-term support for them.
Note that after-sales engagement is different from after-sales customer support. The latter’s focus is mainly on helping customers deal with immediate product issues. On the other hand, after-sales engagement centers on enhancing the product experience.
How After-Sales Engagement Gives You A Strong Start
While often overlooked, after-sales engagement has various benefits that can help businesses. When tapped correctly, these benefits can bring in not just return buyers but also new customers.
A Strong Start For Post-Sale Marketing
After-sales engagement allows you to launch hyper-targeted and personalized marketing towards customers. This includes recommending related products and providing product suggestions based on their current needs. That cuts down on the budget you need to spend for retargeting these customers with advertising.
Increased Customer Retention
By continuously engaging with customers after their purchase, you increase their satisfaction with your brand. This is where after-sales engagement crosses paths with customer service, as you ensure that buyers are getting all the help they need to use products. With that, they would want to come back for more from you.
A Strong Start For Generating More Leads
Image from Sales POP
One interesting side effect of good after-sales engagement is that satisfied customers are more likely to recommend you to their peers. Studies noted that 33% of customers are likely to talk about a brand with 5 or more people because of a good experience with it. That bit of free promotion can have a significant impact on how well you win over referrals.
How To Get A Strong Start With After Sales Engagement
With the varied customers your brand encounters, it can be hard to determine how to do after-sales engagement for each. However, you can follow some general steps here. These will give you a strong start in creating your post-sale experience.
- Onboarding: This step involves helping customers figure out the ins and outs of the product.
- Additional Instructions: This typically covers any maintenance questions that customers might have. You can also talk about safety tips they need to follow.
- Relevant product recommendations: This is where you get to offer customers additional products that can help them get more out of the initial purchase.
- Advanced post-sale guidance: This is the information for questions not covered by basic instruction. You would want to provide these to customers frequently.
Note that these steps can vary greatly from brand to brand. Consulting your customers will help you determine what exact types of post-sales engagement they expect from you. You can also build that engagement around anticipating potential concerns they might have.
Opening A Strong Start For Engagements
A particular challenge of doing post-sales engagement is how you are going to initiate it. Unless they have issues to raise, many customers do not expect to be in touch with a brand after purchase. As such, they may become wary of you contacting them at this point.
Image from SmartrMail.
For that, you would want to start by sending a Thank you email to the customer. This acts as a friendly gesture from you towards them. Be sure to craft a message that will catch their attention and highlight how important they are to you.
Since you will be handling a lot of customers, this Thank You email will most likely be automated. But you would still want to put some degree of personalization here. People will respond to you more if they see you acknowledging them individually.
Sending Out Additional Product Information
A great thing about Thank You emails is that they have high open rates. This gives you a good opportunity for more marketing. You would want to capitalize on that by sending something with the email that will get people’s interest.
Product guides are a popular option for that email attachment. These guides give customers additional information about the product they bought. But it also works to introduce related products to customers.
When building your product guides, make sure that it has different information from the instruction manuals that customers already have. You can provide additional tips on using the products, as well as ideas like recipes or projects. With the product recommendations, be strategic in the ones you decide to include, such as those that customers are most likely to use with the product they bought.
A Strong Star For Getting Feedback
Another handy strategy to maintain post-sales engagement is by asking for feedback from customers. People are always ready to provide their opinion on the products they purchase. Thus, they will readily respond to your request.
The trick here is to time your feedback request correctly. Contacting customers one week after their purchase gives them enough time to assess the product and give you an honest opinion. From there, you can send out some regular surveys, albeit with the customer’s consent.
Offering Rewards
Arguably one of the best ways to drive post-sales engagement is by offering rewards to customers. This can come in the form of discount coupons or exclusive deals. Time these gifts during special occasions such as their birthday or during holidays. This will encourage them to look into your latest offers and avail of the gifts.
You can take this further by building a loyalty program for customers who frequently engage with you. Make it easy for them to participate in the program and offer some good rewards. These rewards should be significantly more valuable for people to hop on board.
Keep Your Startup Company Engaging Customers After-Sales
Good after-sales engagement will bring plenty of returning and new customers into your fold. But this sudden increase in engagement can be challenging for a startup company like yours. Luckily, you can take advantage of outsourcing for this.
We at Virtua Outsourcing Solutions can help you here. Our expert agents will interact with your customers after their purchases and get them involved more with your brand. Connect with us today and get a strong start on the opportunity to keep customers coming back.