Post-checkout or post-purchase engagement is the process of interacting with your customers after purchasing from your online store. It is a crucial strategy to build customer loyalty, increase retention, and drive repeat sales. 

There are many ways to engage customers after they purchase, merchants commonly use this opportunity to collect valuable feedback that can be used to improve customer satisfaction and reduce the likelihood of returns and refunds.

It is important for retailers, but some may focus instead on acquiring new customers. This is a costly mistake, as acquiring a new customer is five times more expensive than retaining an existing one. Furthermore, the probability of selling to existing customers is 60-70%, while for new prospects it is much lower at 5-20% only.

The need for post-checkout engagement is getting critical, but it is easier said than done. In this blog post, we share with you why post-checkout engagement is important for your business, and outline the key steps you can take to improve post-checkout engagement.

Why post-checkout Engagement Matters

Post-checkout engagement is a requirement for online retailers to stand out in today's competitive e-commerce landscape. And here are some reasons why you need to pay more attention to it:

Increase customer loyalty 

• By engaging with your customers after they have made a purchase, you show them that you are committed to meeting their needs and preferences and that you value their feedback. This can make them feel appreciated and respected, and increase their trust and loyalty towards your brand.

Drive repeat purchases

• Providing relevant information, offers, and recommendations to your customers post-checkout encourages them to buy more from you. You can also cross-sell and upsell related products or services that complement their purchase to increase order value and lifetime value. According to studies, repeat customers can generate up to 40% of a brand’s revenue, even though they make up less than 10% of your customer base.

Reduce churn and attrition

• By keeping in touch with your customers after they have made a purchase, you get to stay top-of-mind. This prevents customers from forgetting about you or switching to your competitors. You can also address any issues or concerns they may have with their purchase before they cause customers to regret their purchase. This reduces their chances of returning or canceling their order and increases their satisfaction and retention.

Generate word-of-mouth referrals

• Delighting your customers with great post-checkout engagement can turn them into brand advocates who will spread the word about your brand to their friends, family, and social media followers. This can help you attract new customers and increase brand awareness without increasing customer acquisition costs.

How you can improve post-checkout engagement

Now that you know why post-checkout engagement is important for your business, let's look at some of the steps you can take to improve it:

Provide accurate and transparent parcel tracking

One of the most important aspects of post-checkout engagement is providing your customers with accurate and transparent information about the status and location of their order. This can help them feel more confident and secure about their purchase, and reduce their anxiety and frustration. 

You need a reliable parcel tracking solution that is well-integrated with international carriers and can provide accurate and transparent parcel tracking. This solution should allow you to track parcels worldwide, and provide real-time updates to your customers via email, SMS, or a tracking page embedded into your website. 

You can also customize your tracking page with your branding, logo, colors, and content, to create a consistent and seamless post-checkout experience for your customers. While the goal is to reduce returns, tracking parcels traveling in reverse is also important. Doing so reduces the anxiety customers feel, and “where is my refund” (WISMR) inquiries–creating a much more pleasant returns experience. 

Send personalized and timely delivery notifications

For effective post-checkout engagement, being able to send relevant and timely delivery notifications to your customers is important. That’s because waiting for an order is a highly emotional stage in the buying journey. By sending delivery updates, you keep customers informed, excited and engaged about their purchases. This key step can increase their anticipation and satisfaction. 

To do that, you need a smart and flexible delivery notification strategy that allows you to send customized delivery notifications to your customers at different stages of the delivery journey, such as order confirmation, shipment confirmation, out for delivery, delivered, or delayed. 

To further elevate the delivery experience, you can tailor delivery notifications to different segments of your customers based on their location, language, device type, or purchase history. These notifications should include relevant offers, recommendations, and feedback requests to increase engagement and conversions.

Collect and analyze delivery experience rating

Finally we have a key, but often overlooked aspect of post-checkout engagement–collecting and analyzing delivery experience ratings from your customers. This step can help you measure how satisfied your customers are with their delivery experience, and identify any areas of improvement or optimization. 

To collect and analyze delivery experience ratings, you need a simple and effective delivery experience rating solution that allows you to collect feedback from your customers via email or SMS after they receive their orders. 

You can ask them to rate their delivery experience on a scale of 1 to 5 stars and provide any additional comments or suggestions. You can also get deeper insights when you layer customer sentiment data with carrier performance data. From there, you can see if your carriers are meeting customer expectations. 

One platform to get your post-checkout engagement right 

As you can see, post-checkout engagement is a powerful way to boost your business and grow your customer base. But to do it effectively, you need the right tools and solutions that help you create a seamless and memorable post-checkout experience for your customers. 

If you want to learn more about how Parcel Perform can help you boost your business with post-checkout engagement, contact us today for a free demo. We would love to show you how Parcel Perform can take your post-checkout experience to the next level.