Black Friday and Cyber Monday present a huge opportunity for retailers to gain attention from consumers and capture a piece of the pie. In 2017, UK shoppers spent £7.8 billion between this four-day period, with in-store sales up 7% and online sales up nearly 12%. As we know, shoppers are on the hunt for a deal, with 61.61% naming price as their main motivation. For marketers, that means targeting customers who are seemingly loyal to the lowest price. However, just because customers are looking for a sale doesn’t mean marketers shouldn’t use the shopping holiday to think about long-term retention.
Even when consumers are searching for a deal, they still expect a superior experience. By understanding changing purchasing habits, segmenting customer behaviour and meeting customers wherever they are, marketers can jumpstart a company’s ability to bring in more than one-time sales and create a customer for life.
Here’s how marketers can turn Black Friday shoppers into loyal customers.
Accommodate changing purchasing habits
To better engage customers for the long-term, marketers must understand how purchasing behaviour is changing. Now, 77% of 55 to 75-year-olds in the UK have mobile devices but Boomers aren’t the only demographic relying more on mobile devices. Though Black Friday shopping has typically been in-store, 76.7% of last year’s purchases were made online, and only 12% of those shoppers visited the store prior to making an online purchase.
It’s clear that customers are using multiple touchpoints to make purchasing decisions, and companies are opening up new digital communication channels to accommodate. Customers can interact, ask questions and purchase products and services in store, over the phone or on social, chat, text, email and more. On the other end of those interactions are store associates or agents in the contact centre. To keep up, they must be well-versed in brand messaging and be empowered to make day-of decisions to surprise and delight customers. When marketers look at people as part of the retention strategy and ensure proper training, they can ensure employees deliver consistent cross-channel experiences and drive long-term retention.
Analyse cross-channel behaviour
Black Friday and Cyber Monday may cater to bargain hunters but consumers may have other items on their minds. If an item isn’t on sale elsewhere but is on their holiday list, they may be willing to pay full price. It’s important that marketers analyse all purchasing decisions to understand the specific products that customers want – and how and where they interact in the process.
Recording customer calls and tracking online queries across all channels during Black Friday is a critical step to gaining those insights.
Unfortunately, only 45% of UK companies use cross-channel insights to understand customer purchasing habits. Most retailers use quality assurance (QA) tactics to analyse phone inquiries but with Black Friday bringing a high volume of customers ordering and communicating online, those same methods must be applied across all channels. When marketers deploy analytics on customer calls and other interactions, they can understand which channels are most heavily trafficked, how customers are feeling, their purchasing habits and more. From there, they can segment out behaviour and create tailored retention strategies to build brand loyalty beyond the holiday shopping season.
Set long-term goals using last year’s numbers
Black Friday and Cyber Monday bring shoppers through the doors – and call/other channel volume to the contact centre. Analysing interactions across channels opens up a treasure trove of data that gives marketers insight into customer behaviour and conversion rates. That’s not all – by revisiting last year’s numbers and looking at recent history, such as interaction volume, first-call resolution and sales revenue, marketers gain context around prior purchasing patterns. From there, they can make proper adjustments before Black Friday hits and set long-term goals based on year-over-year data.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday may be the biggest shopping days of the year but marketers have an opportunity to turn deal-driven shoppers into long-term customers. When they use the right insights to deeply understand customers and take subsequent action, organisations can start building brand loyalty for the future.