Topic: Member Workshop: Make Repeat Customers out of One-Time Buyers
Host: hostedsupport Date: Tuesday 06/24 Time: 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. Pacific time Location:Workshop Board
Description: In this workshop, Jerad Schempp, COO of Certified Solution Provider Hosted Support will provide pointers for how you can keep buyers "on the hook" to generate repeat purchases.
Welcome everyone and thanks for joining me today! Workshops are more fun and informative when there’s plenty of interaction, so please feel free to ask any questions related to this topic.
Our eBay ID is hostedsupport and Hosted Support is an eBay Certified Solution Provider. We’ve been in business since 2003 and have an eBay Compatible Application called ezSupport for eBay that’s built exclusively for eBay sellers. I’m very excited to share our experience and knowledge regarding customer support issues and how you can increase your auction listings (and your revenue) without getting swamped by customer questions.
My topic today is how you can build your repeat customer base, and I think this is one of the most crucial aspects of being a successful seller -- both on and off eBay. Selling to repeat customers can save you a tremendous amount of time and energy, so loyal customers may just be worth their weight in gold.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have anything against first-time customers. On the contrary, sellers should always lay out the welcome mat for new customers. It’s just that new customers are more work, and here’s why.
Convincing people to make a first-time purchase from you isn’t easy. You have to have a product that people want. You have to get your product in front of those people. You have to present your product in a compelling way. You have to provide all the information necessary for customers to make a buying decision. And to top it all off, you have to convince prospective customers that you’ve got a better deal than any of your competitors. That’s hard work!
But the bright side of selling to a first-time buyer is that you only have to do it ONCE. After that the buyer is a past customer and the hard part is over. You’ve already convinced them that you are a seller they want to do business with, and selling more to them is relatively easy. So why not take the easy route to increased sales by selling as much as possible to past customers? Sound good? You bet it does, so here are a few tips for keeping customers “on the hook” for repeat business.
CREATE a POSITIVE BUYING EXPERIENCE OK, you may be saying “Well, duh, that’s obvious. Buyers will come back if they were happy the first time around.” And you’re right, this is obvious. In fact it’s so obvious that sellers sometime overlook it, because sellers are used to dealing with lots of “buyers” and forget that individual buyers may not be used to dealing with you the seller. Your job is to make each buyer’s transaction with you memorable in a positive way. So do your best to keep each transaction as trouble-free as possible, and be friendly in all your dealings with buyers. Remember that each communication you have with a buyer creates a positive or negative impression, and the more positive impressions you create, the more likely a buyer will be to do repeat business with you.
BUILD RAPPORT using CONTACT HISTORY It’s vital that you keep a contact record for each of your customers that includes all the contact information you can gather as well as communication history. Knowing what you and your customer said to each other last week, last month, or last year will allow you to avoid confusing he-said, she-said situations and more importantly will help you build a rapport with your customers. I can’t stress enough the importance of having good rapport with your customers. It’s that sense of connection and harmonious relations more than anything else that will keep customers coming back to deal with you. And the key to building rapport is having communication history at your fingertips so you can respond to customers individually when necessary based on their past communications.
TRACK BUYER PURCHASES A proactive way to keep buyers coming back for more is to track what they’ve already purchased from you and then alert them when similar or complementary merchandise is available. For example, if you sell iPods, and you’re expanding your listings to include iPod accessories, such as cases and speakers, you can let your past buyers know that you have these items available. It’s highly likely that many buyers won’t have even thought of buying something until you let them know it’s available. Then they realize they need and it will buy it from you, a trusted seller they’ve purchased from before.
RESPOND QUICKLY Quickly answering buyer questions is critical because the seconds are literally ticking away for each auction listing, and buyers may hold off bidding until their question has been answered. Responding quickly to questions also demonstrates that you’re a seller who cares. The tricky part about this is that your auction listings are open 24 hours a day, and you never know when questions will come in. That’s where “self-service” tools that answer customer questions automatically or allow customers to find answers on their own come in handy. But I’ll discuss this option more in a minute.
SHIP QUICKLY Process and ship your orders with lightening speed. You should treat each order like a hot potato that you need to get off your hands and on its way out your door pronto, because the quicker a customer receives their purchase, the better impression they’ll have of you as a dependable seller. And that translates into repeat business.
But Ebay doesn't let you email the customer "in the future" after the transaction is complete, when you get something they may like UNLESS they have signed up for your e-newsletter! Keeping their info to contact them in the future is considered spamming to ebay. Please respond to this. Have you found a way to do that without braking thsi Ebay rule?
“PERSONALIZE” A great way to make buyers remember you and come back is by personalizing their purchasing experience. This can be difficult when you’ve got lots of sales, but it can also be as easy as including a thank you note in each shipment. A simple, hand-written “Happy to do business with you!” can work wonders. But if you don’t have time for hand-written notes, even a pre-printed card can go a long way. Or how about including something useful that’s related to your product. For instance, if you’re selling books include a bookmark with your company logo and contact information. Even if it’s not “personalized”, small gestures create the feeling of personal attention and sincere appreciation.
Hi brilliantbuyer, the ability to email customers in the future requires you to have them opt in to communications from you. If you keep a contact record that contains their email or other contact address and have the customers permission to let them know about future deals, you can do so.
Sewoh11, you have a fabulous cross over product into scrapbooking. You might want to include the word scrapbook or scrapbooking into your title and/or category. Deb D
Hi sewoh11, of course every business is different, and it's possible that you only have such unique items that one-time purchases are the rule. But most business have repeatable merchandise or complementary merchandise that can be offered to past customers.
Thanks for that input - one last item to clear: so are you saying, that if I email them and they have officially signed up to receive communications from me out side of ebay, like if I email them from Constant Contact, an email provider, and they officially click the Sign Me Up for Your Newsletter - then I can then contact them throughout the year and have it not be spamming to Ebay?
FACILITATE RETURNS Providing a liberal return policy will also go a long way towards building the trust that’s necessary for a long-term customer relationship. Even if a customer never needs to return anything, just knowing that a seller is willing to accept a return without a lot of hassle provides the safety net most buyers are looking for when dealing over the internet.
What if I don't have a website to send newsletters from? Does eBay have a newsletter option I can use and attach to listings to request opt-ins from buyers so that I can contact them in the future?
bournent, our ezSupport for eBay has a contact manager that automatically creates contact records for all customers who submit questions. ezSupport for eBay doesn't currently have a "marketing" module tht can be used to mass email contacts like the way Constant Contact works. But contact record info can be exported from ezSupport for eBay and used in marketing systems like Constant Contact. Marketing management is a feature that we're working to add to ezSupport.
Hi brigettes-giftshop, I'm not sure whether eBay provides a newsletter option for listings. But services like Constant Contact and Vertical Response are good options that you may want to look into.
REWARD LOYALTY Give customers a tangible reason to make additional purchases from you and they’re much more likely to keep coming back. And you don’t have to go overboard here. Depending on your business, a suitable “reward” could be something like free shipping for repeat customers, a free Starbucks gift card for every other purchase, or specified discounts sent to customers via email. eBay Certified providers like MyStoreRewards can also make implementing rewards easy, so whatever makes sense for you, a well-managed loyalty program can be extremely effective.
Brilliantbuyer, you might also want to look into MyStoreRewards I have just begun using it with good success.
Hostedsupport, I'm assuming too that ezSupport allows emails to be submitted from it so that I can answer the question if I don't already have an auto answer for it. Is that correct? Deb D
Brigetts-giftshop when you have a store that is one of the options eBay has is a newsletter option. They have a few templates that you can work from within. But for those that don't have eBay stores like hostedsupport is stating there are other means.
You might want to check out the web for email clients and see what comes up.
hostedsupport any estimate of the release of your marketing management feature to ezSupport?
Yes bournent, you're absolutely correct. If an auto answer is not available, manual replies can be sent via ezSupport. ezSupport also includes features like "canned" replies that can be used to quickly poplate responses, that saves time handling questions.
I do answer questions quickly about an item-but then the person who asked still does not make a purchase and I'm left wondering if I did something wrong. Not sure how common this is-but is there a solution?
Hi shop4uniquegifts. I don't have a hard date for launch of our marketing management module, but can estimate late this year or early next year. Nailing down software releases is always a challenge.
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