Imagine you’re having a relaxing night on the couch when your phone buzzes with a notification from your favorite app. This notification tells you that there’s a sale on that button-up shirt you’ve been eyeing. Intrigued, you open the app and see that it’s a great deal. You add the item to your cart and purchase the item. And now, you made the step from an existing customer to a repeat customer of that store.

This is the real-life story of your ideal customer persona going through a shopping journey with your brand. And this is exactly how you use automation and technology to enhance the success of your brand. 

Take another example of Vintage Boho Bags, a luxury fashion brand, that built a mobile app to make their loyal customers feel special and loved. They use their app to build lasting customer relationships. Now they have customers who’ll stay with them for life.

Returning customers offer many benefits in addition to providing a steady revenue stream for your business. Let’s look at some of the strategies to retain your customers.

Some common customer retention strategies

There are many ways to retain customers. Some strategies may work better for you than other stores, depending on the type of products you sell, customer demographics, and your market and industry. 

Here are some of the common customer retention strategies that are tried and tested by successful brands across multiple industries:

1. Provide excellent shopping experience and customer service

A continuous positive experience through friendly and personalized services will keep your customers coming back. With the rise in online stores and online shoppers, this looks like a live chat ready to answer questions, efficient customer support, and a user-friendly mobile app that makes shopping a breeze. 

2. Focus on continuous customer engagement

Like any other relationship, communication strengthens a customer relationship. Many e-commerce stores keep up communication through multiple channels like push notifications, emails, SMS, and social media. Asking customers to fill out surveys or provide feedback is also a great way to initiate two-way communication and make customers feel heard and valued.

3. Implement customer loyalty programs

Loyalty programs are one of the most successful ways e-commerce brands maintain and improve customer retention as everyone loves to receive rewards for their purchases. Many brands incorporate reward systems where loyal customers receive points or coupons for every purchase that they can then redeem for future purchases. This point-based system keeps them returning for more.

Now, in addition to these common strategies, hyper-successful brands adopt a more streamlined approach to retaining customers. They create a mobile app to engage their community of loyal customers and fans. Let’s see how.

Improve customer retention with a mobile app

With the wide array of customer retention strategies, getting started can feel daunting. But Vajro can help.

Vajro is an app builder for Shopify brands that makes connecting with your customers and retaining them easier than ever. Let’s dive deeper to understand how Vajro can help you blend the above-mentioned customer retention strategies into the mobile-first digital world and win customers for life.

Customer retention strategy #1: Make shopping fun on the app

Make sure your mobile app is user-friendly and easy to use. When customers can find the products they are looking for or check out items they already viewed, they are much more likely to return to your app. Customers also appreciate when an app can recommend products that interest them and will return to the app to see what else your store has to offer.

Vajro integrates with Glood.ai to help brands add product recommendation widgets to their product pages to increase conversions and customer retention. 

Check out how Carols Boutique implements product recommendations on their app’s product display page in the form of Related Products and Recently Viewed.

Other recommendations and cross-sell widgets that you can add to your app with the Vajro X Glood.ai integration are:

• Frequently Bought Together
• Personalized For You
• Recently Launched
• Trending
• Bestsellers
• Recent Purchases

Read more.

Vajro makes it easy to optimize the search and filter features on the app with smart search, auto-complete, search suggestions, personalized results, and visual discovery. When a customer's shopping journey is smooth from start to finish, it creates a positive experience and shows that your brand is reliable.

Here’s how Vilvah, a beauty and skincare brand, helps app users to self-serve on the app. They offer ready-made solutions for common skin and beauty concerns like acne, dry skin, hair fall, and dandruff.

Next, they have integrated WhatsApp live chat support into their app’s homepage. Just a click on the WhatsApp icon takes them to a chat where a support representative is available to answer all queries. 

Customer service at the fingertips, literally!‍

Customer retention strategy #2: Use behavior-based push notifications

Push notifications are a great way to engage your customers and inform them of the latest updates. When you build your app with Vajro, you can send notifications with a few clicks and also schedule them at optimal times. Increase engagement and open rates with images, videos, GIFs, emojis, and AI-crafted messages when you inform customers about sales and special occasions. Learn more about setting up automated and manual push notifications here.

Vajro integrates with marketing automation software like Klaviyo and WebEngage to help personalize and automate your notifications based on their behavior or actions within the app.

• Is a customer brand new to your app? Send a welcome message encouraging them to check out specific features. 
• Did a customer add items to their cart but never check out? Send a reminder for them to purchase their items before they get sold out. 
• Does someone view a particular collection often? Notify them that there is a discount on their favorite collection.
• Did someone purchase a new product on your app? Send them a personalized notification thanking them for their purchase or recommending related products.

Refer to these articles to learn how you can use Vajro’s integration with Klaviyo and WebEngage for your push notification campaigns:

Vajro X Klaviyo

Vajro X WebEngage

Customer retention strategy #3: Offer app-exclusive discounts

Customers appreciate rewards while shopping from a brand. It not only makes them feel special, but it encourages them to return to your store for a similar experience. With Vajro, you can strengthen this experience with in-app discounts. Set specific criteria that a customer can meet to receive a reward or a discount. 

For example, set a threshold of a $100 purchase for a customer to receive free shipping. Or offer a discount or gift if a customer purchases a certain item.

Look at this stunning strategy by Shop CCB boutique. They welcome new app users on the app homepage with an attractive discount for their first app order. And on the next scroll, they promote products that are available only on the app through an attractive banner.

These incentives will not only increase sales and revenue but also increase customer retention and loyalty. When a customer receives free shipping or discounts with an order, they will return to your store the next time they are shopping. To learn more about how you can set up auto discounts on your app, refer to this document.

[Bonus] Customer retention strategy #4: Integrate social selling into your app 

Social selling is a great strategy to engage your customers, and the popularity of live streams strengthens this. In live sessions, you can show off a product and educate your customers on its specifics and how they can use it.

Vajro helps you to go live from within your mobile app and on Facebook at the same time, enable easy checkouts with a few clicks, as well as manage customer interactions and engagement. There are chatbots on Vajro to help you initiate interactions and boost visibility into who added what products to the cart or wishlist during a live sale. Read more about them here.

Consider this example from Palette of Threads Boutique where they invite customers to join their live session on Spring Collection. During the 20-minute live session, they showcase all the products from this collection and educate viewers on how they can pair accessories with the dress. All the products they show on the live video, the Buy button, and the Cart icon are available right on the app screen to ensure a seamless shopping experience.

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Let us look at another example from Simply Me Boutique, who adopted a creative way to integrate social media into their mobile app. After they saw huge traffic to their mobile app, they linked their Instagram Reels to the app to enable customers to choose to buy from their Instagram account.

When you notify customers about live streams and make them a fun and accessible experience, viewers are more likely to return to your store, gain a positive experience, and make repeat purchases on your site.
To learn more about implementing live selling into your retention strategy, refer to these documents.

Retain your customers for life with Vajro

Maintaining a relationship with your customer takes care, communication, creativity, and personalization. Customer retention is a key factor in your store's revenue and overall success, and finding the right tools for increasing customer retention strategies makes all the difference. 

More than 5,000 Shopify and Shopify Plus brands trust Vajro as part of their robust customer retention strategies. Vajro offers numerous ways to build lasting relationships and keep your customers returning to your store. To learn more about Vajro and what it can do for your store, schedule a demo today. You can also try our 30-day, free trial to get started with implementing the above-mentioned customer retention strategies right away.