WHAT IS AFTER-SALES MARKETING? CLIENT’S STORY
14 min
Mar 11 2022
Evgeniy BBusiness analyst
Nikita LExecutive Director
Every entrepreneur knows that customer retention is important, but in reality, less than 20% really focus on it. Sales processes in many small companies often look like this: “I want you to buy this today, but tomorrow I forget you even exist.” How do you stop losing clients?
After-sales marketing is a tool to encourage repeat purchases of products or services. It also works to build up loyalty.
How effective is this method of increasing sales? How to set up and automate after-sales marketing? Let’s talk about it. At the end of the article, we’ll also look at the case study of our client.
Table of contents
WHAT IS AFTER-SALES MARKETING
Post-sales or after-sales marketing is the services and attention your customer receives after they purchased from you.
Customer relationships have essentially the same basis as any other relationships: attention and trust. It doesn’t mean pretending to be their friend, however. You just should treat them as human beings (which they are), and that will be enough.
Surprisingly, only 18% of businesses focus on customer retention. But here is some good news: you can improve today and become better than your competitors tomorrow.
Post-sales processes include building a long-term relationship with your customer. This means focusing on their needs and specifics —> a customer feels valued —> wants to stay with your brand.
5 REASONS TO IMPLEMENT POST-SALES
Think about your own reasons for researching the topic of after-sales. What would you like to achieve as a business owner? These are the top-5 benefits any company can get from post-sales services.
| Top-5 benefits | What you get |
| Real feedback | You get to know your customer better and can offer valuable services. You can also listen to their issues with your product and improve it.. |
| Better support | You will quickly find out how you can help before they turn to some other, more responsive company. |
| Enhanced brand recognition | A client will remember you if you return with timely advice or a helpful offer. |
| Upselling, cross-selling, and referral sales | 50% of happy customers are likely to get interested in your other services/products, and 91% are likely to recommend your business to people they know. |
| Brand loyalty | As a result, your regular customers speak well of your company on social media and choose you over and over because you’re always here for them. |
One of the golden rules of sales is that it is easier to keep in touch with an existing customer than to find a new one. What is more, keeping and building relationships appear to be 5–7 times more cost-effective than client search and acquisition.
According to multiple surveys, customer retention practices and post-sales campaigns can bring up to 50% more profits. However, new purchases from the same customer aren’t the main goal: most businesses focus on brand loyalty and referrals.
All in all, after-sales marketing is a way to create consumer loyalty and more purchases without overspending.
Now let’s consider some best practices of after-sales marketing. What works best when it comes to developing a sustained connection with your clients?
AFTER-SALES MARKETING TECHNIQUES
What things are great to do when it comes to customer relationships? First of all, you should generally be less corporate and more human. Focus on a genuine interest in your customers and willingness to solve their pain points.
Some ideas for after-sales communication with your customers:
- Helpful support
- Asking customers for feedback
- Good UX on your website or mobile app
- A unique voice on social media
- Blog with tips and guides on your product
- Wise use of email marketing (no spam, only audience segmentation)
These techniques are easy but efficient. Cleverly applied, they can help your business keep in touch with customers without being intrusive or annoying.
Here are some more examples of a post-sales service:
- Warranty service
- Training on how to use your product
- Delivery management (including changes and cancellation)
- Personalized messages
Let’s dive deep into these examples.
Warranty service & Tech support
Problem-solving is the first and most obvious case of the connection between vendors and consumers. Warranty service and tech support are both effective ways of communication with your customer after the purchase. It helps create a good impression and gradually builds brand loyalty.
The politeness of support specialists, quick repair or replacement, even trouble-free refunds – all of these have a positive effect on consumers.
Businesses apply CRM systems, help desk software, and chatbots to manage users’ requests for tech support and warranty services.
Training on how to use your product
Some people won't buy your product simply because they don't understand it properly. By teaching people how to make the best of your goods and services, you will build trust.
Training platforms with video content, educational blogs and similar solutions are good techniques for consumer electronics stores, gun stores, sophisticated software, new websites and apps, etc.
Educational means will help your customers get started faster and see visible results from using your product or service. Besides, effective training or valuable tips encourage people to spend more time on your website or come back to buy related products.
Our Services
We develop training platforms for any purposeDelivery management
E-commerce thrives today, creating enormous opportunities for post-sales communication. Delivery management requires efficient logistics processes to bring goods to the end customer safely and quickly.
These processes include every milestone, such as order placement, change of information, tracking, cancellation, etc. Each step provides a great opportunity to show your customers that you care. As the result, you’ll gain their trust and loyalty.
Companies widely use digital tools such as CRM and LMS systems for managers, mobile apps for clients, couriers and drivers, etc. If you are interested in digital technologies for logistics, feel free to read our article about it.
Personalized Messages
Many businesses use messengers for after-sale services. This approach helps keep in touch with customers, segment them by demographics and needs, set and schedule messages, see statistics, calculate your expenses, etc.
These are the most prominent benefits of using personalized messaging campaigns:
- Reaching your target audience
- Expressing that you understand your customers and want to connect with them
- Providing helpful resources, quick customer support and valuable offers
- Showing that you care about special dates (e.g., birthdays)
- Building brand loyalty through a series of positive interactions
- Engaging participants during events (online or offline)
- Generating quality leads and Increasing conversions
- Stimulating recommendations, cross-selling, etc.
Many businesses opt for CRM systems to keep track of their after-sales marketing processes. For example, one of our company’s recent projects is a custom CRM for marketing via messengers and email.
Our Work
CRM for After-sales MarketingWe developed a new module for post-sales marketing to help our client’s startup grow. Would you like to read the whole story?
OUR CLIENT’S STORY
As a software development company, we are not just focused on quality code and timely delivery. We love to see the real-life results that businesses achieve with us being their technology partner.
Kiskadi is a Brazilian SaaS startup that understands the value of after-sales marketing. They create specific tools for retail businesses. The core part of their work is helping vendors establish a sustained connection with customers.
A variety of after-sales marketing tools from Kiskadi includes a CRM, loyalty program, campaigns, and more. There is a recent module that enables personalized messaging through SMS, WhatsApp, and email. We love this feature and we were happy to contribute.
Our client Francois, the company’s CEO, reached out to us seeking help with the redesign and new functionality implementation:
- Change design of website screens
- Automate sending SMS/email/WhatsApp messages
- Collect consumers’ metrics
- Create a reporting system
- Improve performance
This new messaging module has brought a lot of value to Kiskadi and its clients. Here is a very telling example from the case study on the Kiskadi website.
Vitor is a store owner who actively used SMS campaigns to communicate with customers during the pandemic. He also implemented the metrics module to track all the resources and results. This effective and measurable campaign lead to a significant increase in online purchases: the store gained 8 times more than spent, all because of clever post-sales marketing with Kiskadi.
It’s very satisfying for us to see our clients’ businesses thrive with the help of the digital product we built for them.
As for now, Kiskadi works with 700+ active stores. We implemented a user-friendly design and built new features, resulting in:
- 20% more clients
- 10% increase in the product’s pricing
- Overall profits grew by 32%
Do you want to find out more about this project? Read a full case study here.
Do you have a similar project in mind? Contact us!
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