Customer Engagement After the Sale

Customer engagement after the sale can support brand discovery, drive future purchases, and improve the user experience. Brands that build ongoing relationships with consumers can also reduce the cost of customer acquisition. According to Digital Strategy Consulting, acquiring a new customer is five to 25 times more expensive than retaining existing ones. Profitability is at stake, too. Market research in Forbes shows that raising customer retention rates by just 5% can boost profits by 25% to 95%. As brands look ahead to 2021, it’s worth considering these numbers and reflecting upon holiday gift giving.

Brand Discovery and Brand Affinity

During the winter holiday season, many gift recipients discover brands in the form of products they wouldn’t normally purchase. For example*, a wine lover who adores Italian Merlot may receive a Chilean vintage that’s especially appealing. This causes the wine drinker to begin buying bottles of Chilean Merlot during subsequent shopping trips. Yet, these new purchases aren’t of the same brand. The buyer raves about Chilean wines but lacks brand affinity — a preference for the specific brand of wine that was received as a holiday gift. This is a lost opportunity for the vintner as well as for her marketing agency.

Through customer engagement after the sale, consumers like wine buyers can become raving fans of brands — and not just proponents of broad categories of products. Consider the case of 19 Crimes, a brand of wine with labels that contain compelling pictures of long-deceased convicts. These labels aren’t just distinctive; they’re interactive. Buyers who download a smartphone app can scan bottles and listen to recorded versions of the criminals’ stories. Because there are different labels, there are different bottles with different tales. Some wine lovers even play party games with various bottles at events.

Toward a Customer Engagement Strategy

Of course, not all buyers want technologies like this. Consider the example of an elderly grandparent who receives a new coffee maker for Christmas. The appliance has electronic features that appealed to a younger gift giver but that may frustrate the gift recipient. Providing smartphone-enabled instructions or a link to a YouTube video that requires an Internet connection wouldn’t do much here. What would help, however, is an interactive print media product that talks back to provide instruction.

This voice-enabled technology, an example of Connect™ after-sale engagement from Voice Express, doesn’t require a smartphone, an Internet connection, or a computer. With the example of our wine drinker, the power of voice could also increase customer engagement after the sale. If the gift our wine lover received came with a voice interactive brochure, the recipient might have learned why this brand of Chilean wine is distinctive. A smartphone app for wines may seem novel, but many other brands are now using this technique. To stand out from the crowd, brands will need to be different in 2021.

Increase Customer Engagement After the Sale

Whether you’re still unwrapping presents or polishing your branding strategy for 2021, Voice Express invites you to read these recent articles about voice-enabled technologies.

• Emotional Marketing for Amazon Storefronts
• Gift Giving and Emotional Marketing for Brands
• Direct Marketing: An Introduction
• Audio Detailing: Alternative Marketing for More Sales Appointments

Thank you for engaging Voice Express, where we enable brands and consumers to communicate in a direct and unmediated fashion through self-playing media. If you’re looking for a way to provide a high-impact experience, we’re here to help. Contact Voice Express to get started.

*The featured image for this blog entry is a liquor delivery use case suggestion. The Drizly logo is shown as a suggested use case only, and does not imply an actual campaign or license with or from Drizly.