In the previous blog we discussed what is customer abandonment and how prolific it is across industries, in this blog we review a number of techniques to prevent abandonment from happening.

There are a number of ways that companies can dramatically reduce customer abandonment levels and successfully achieve more sales conversions.

1. Build customer confidence using your website

Your website is your primary point of contact with customers, and is therefore key to building trust. People naturally feel more comfortable when they can easily access all the information they need, and that information is easy to read and understand. Therefore, make sure your website is easy to use and information regarding products and services is accessible, so that customers can feel more confident about their purchase decision.

Going even one step further, some companies take a proactive approach to engagement. By monitoring when customers are about to leave, they jump in to try and re-engage. This is done by connecting website analytics with the company CRM to inform marketing and sales teams of where on the website customers abandoned the processes, and identifying a method of drawing them back again.

Watch Video: On-boarding New Customers Made Ridiculously Easy

2. Easy login access

In many cases customers give up on the process because they simply can’t remember their login credentials. According to one report, by 2024 the average consumer will have 400 different login accounts, for all of which they are recommended to have a unique password. That’s a lot to remember!
To make the login much easier an OTP, or One Time Password, can be utilized. OTPs which are generally used to bolster account security, can also serve to smooth line customer purchasing processes by sending users a unique password to access their account. For example, a financial company is offering a unique deal of low interest rates on their mortgage loans. Instead of logging into their online bank account and searching for the deal, a customer can be sent an OTP by SMS. The customer inputs the OTP password into a promotional screen display and is redirected to the relevant online form where they can apply for the loan.

Related Article: Seamless Security: Bio-metric Authentication

3. Optimize customer self-service

Customer self service can incorporate the entire purchasing process, from product research through to purchase and feedback. When done well, it is great. The key is keeping processes as simple and easy as possible.

This can be achieved by integrating customer behavior with the company’s CRM. If you haven’t done this already, this is important for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it facilitates customer self-service by strategizing their experience of product research and supporting their purchase decision. Based on data already collected about a customer, a company can promote the relevant range of products that are likely to interest them. For example, an insurance company is looking to sell a home policy on fire damage, the company would have far better chances selling this policy to people living in fire prone areas, such as California, than to people who live in Maine. Therefore, the promotion can be targeted to customers on the CRM whose location is California and southern nearby areas. The relevance of the product to meeting this target group’s need is going to be strong and therefore conducive to their purchase decision.

Another benefit of integrating purchase processes with the CRM is that customer details can be automatically populated to a form, thereby shortening the process. Going back to the insurance policy example, let’s say a resident of California decides to purchase the fire protection policy, as they fill out the application form, information already held about the customer on the CRM is populated to the screen. The customer doesn’t have to fill out their name and location for example, but just the type of policy they require. This reduces the number of fields the customer needs to fill in, and increases the probability of the purchase being completed.

 

Related Article: Customer Engagement Platform: Make Your Sales Managers Ridiculously Successful

 

Improving the customer experience on your website is an important start to preventing customer abandonment, yet there are also tools available to support the onboarding process that customers access, once they decide to purchase. We address these in our next blog.  In the meantime, take a look at these interesting, industry-wide statistics on customer abandonment.