Boost Customer Loyalty with These 10 Omnichannel Strategies

Increasing customer loyalty through omnichannel strategies is a great way for retailers to keep customers coming back. But that goes further than just giving customers rewards for purchases.

Here are 10 tips on how to use omnichannel strategies to boost customer loyalty:

1. Provide Personal Service

By developing personal relationships with customers, you can create an emotional connection that will inspire them to stay loyal. Many high-end stores offer personalized shopping advice based on the customer’s preferences and past purchases. This is easier for boutiques and places that have regulars like contractors for hardware stores, fashionistas for apparel stores, or hobbyists for comic or hobby stores. It isn’t the amount that makes them loyal; they desire to come in more frequently, which makes them loyal.

2. Offer Real-Time Support

Customers want fast service and support when they need it, so make sure your omnichannel strategy includes real-time support options such as chatbots that are available 24/7. No one wants to have to wait for the store to open when they are trying to put something together, or they have a question. Otherwise, they’ll go to YouTube or Tiktok to get advice.

3. Create Custom Experiences

Today’s customers expect their experience with your brand to be tailored to them; using omnichannel strategies allows you to do this by analyzing data points like location, purchase history, and browsing behavior across multiple channels. While cookies are used to allow tracking of many online behaviors, finding a way to get their information and then serving up what is most meaningful in your app, blog, or other communication is becoming increasingly easy to personalize.

4. Leverage Cross-Channel Promotions

Give customers incentives for engaging with your brand across multiple channels by providing exclusive offers that are only available when a customer engages with you on different platforms. You might have an influencer on Instagram, a live in-person trunk show, a live stream for a product drop, or a bounceback offer if they come into the store after buying something online. The key is being creative for each channel but being aware they all serve the same customer. 

5. Give Associates All the Information They Need

Equip your employees with the information they need about a customer before they interact with them so that they can better serve them. For example, associates should have access to all of a shopper’s past purchases so that they can give custom recommendations for new items or even suggest an updated version of something the shopper already owns. This used to be done on note cards but now can be done digitally.

6. Introduce Virtual Closets or Toolboxes

Creating virtual closets and toolboxes gives shoppers more ways to organize their products while also providing insight to you on what they’ve bought in the past, which could help steer future purchases back towards your store.  This has been exclusive to big box retailers and online giants like Amazon, but as the technology becomes affordable, these tools will be widely available for smart retailers to add.

7. Encourage Feedback & Reviews

Inviting customers to leave feedback or reviews after their transactions help build trust between your brand and potential customers, as well as helps you continually improve upon the services you offer and gain valuable insights into what shoppers are looking for from physical stores today. Launching a new product? Ask your tribe via email survey, online pool, or hashtag what they think about your messaging. If you have loyal customers’ information, you can request they post a 5-star review directly to your Google page by texting a link. The goal is to strategically ask your best customers to share in case you get a few that aren’t so great.

8. Connect Offline & Online Experiences

Unifying online and offline experiences creates consistency in communication between customers and associates. Seeing the customer as one who shops in different ways increases loyalty from your shoppers who want to shop when they want and how they want. That means loyalty points and rewards need to be seen as one shopping cart that follows them on whatever channel they use. 

9. Reward Friends Through Referrals

Everyone loves free stuff—and when it comes from people you know, everyone loves it even more. Consider implementing referral programs where customers can receive rewards for referring other friends and family members. This could be by asking them to share a promotion, a social post, or a BombBomb video to get some other benefit. That increases both sales volume and loyalty at the same time. Now, if you could somehow combine the dollar amount those referrals spent with the amount your original customer spends, you would be able to truly see how that one loyal customer influences your store’s sales. 

10 Take Advantage of Targeted Messaging

Using targeted messaging requires a certain level of understanding about each individual customer—which omnichannel tactics allow you to do! By leveraging data already collected, you can craft specific SMS messages tailored just for them based on their location, purchase trends, or preferences.  Again that takes a robust CRM that tracks everything securely. The one thing all of this data provides you is the ability to say, “this is just for you.” Being able to target every message means when your customer receives it, you have higher value because it feels genuine…even if an algorithm provides it. 

In Sum

By leveraging these simple but effective methods within your omnichannel strategy, retailers can increase customer loyalty by creating tailored experiences, supporting them in real-time, and displaying knowledge about individual shopping habits —all factors which contribute towards creating repeat business opportunities.

And that helps them rave about not only your experience in the store but throughout the year. 

Of course, to really get customers to rave about your in-store experience, everyone needs to be on the same page knowing how to create an exceptional experience. Lucky you, I have a program that does just that called SalesRX.com.