Did you know that on average, nearly 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned? That’s an astounding amount of potential revenue left on the table! But fear not, Patch Retention is here to help turn those forgotten carts into completed purchases, driving your customer retention and transforming your retention marketing strategies.
What are Abandoned Carts and How Do They Impact Customer Retention?
An abandoned cart is essentially an online shopping cart that a customer has added items to, but leaves the site without completing the purchase. These abandoned carts represent potential sales and more importantly, they represent customers who showed interest in your products.
Retaining these customers, hence, becomes a critical aspect of eCommerce. A Bain & Co. study suggests that a 5% increase in customer retention can boost profits from 25%-95%. Hence, converting those abandoned carts is a key factor in improving your customer retention rate.
Harnessing Patch Retention to Recover Abandoned Carts
With Shopify-exclusive features, Patch Retention offers a robust toolset to help businesses revive abandoned carts and optimize their retention marketing strategies.
To start with, it’s crucial to correctly configure your abandoned cart settings within your Account Settings in Patch. Patch Retention uses this information to determine when to check for abandoned carts. A common recommendation is setting this time to 1 or 2 hours after the last customer activity.
However, note that this setting does not trigger any Abandoned Cart messages automatically. It only sets up the groundwork for the Patch system to recognize when a cart may have been abandoned.
Once this is set, you need to establish the automation that sends your recovery messages. With Patch Retention's intuitive Automations Wizard, you can easily design customer journey sequences for abandoned cart recovery. Simply answer just a few simple questions and Patch will auto-generate the entire flow for you including the content with pre-loaded templates for your email and/or SMS messaging. Then all you have to do is make a few modifications and tailor them to your brand and you are all set to go!
Abandoned Cart Recovery Best Practices with Patch Retention
When it comes to best practices for recovering abandoned carts, Patch Retention has accumulated some key insights over more than a decade in helping businesses bring customers back, time and time again. So here are our expert recommendations:
Personalized Communication: Start the recovery sequence by sending a personalized message offering assistance or addressing any questions. This not only increases conversion rates but also enhances customer satisfaction. Example: "Hey there! Noticed you've left a cart unfinished on our store. Need help with anything?"
Timing: For the first message offering assistance it’s better to send this a little earlier to catch the user while their shopping attempt is still fresh on their mind. Then if there is no response or they don’t end up checking out, wait for a few hours (we recommend 2-4 hours) after the first message before sending the recovery message with their link.
Offer Incentives: Consider including a discount code in your follow-up message to incentivize purchase completion. A common offer is 'Free Shipping', as this is a primary reason many customers abandon their carts.
Multiple Channels: Use both SMS and Email messages to reach out to customers. Remember to adhere to the regulations of 'expressed consent' for sending marketing messages via SMS.
Use Advanced Features: Patch Retention offers advanced features like the Cart Link URL SmartText and Filter Rules, which allow for more tailored and effective abandoned cart recovery campaigns.
With Patch Retention, converting abandoned carts into successful purchases becomes a breeze, ultimately leading to improved customer retention. After all, in the world of eCommerce, customer retention is not just a strategy, it's the key to sustainable growth.
For more information or any assistance, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team at Patch Retention. Remember, every abandoned cart is a potential opportunity for not just a sale, but for building a lasting relationship with a customer.
Happy marketing!
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