Assimilating the virtue and vitality of any business’ survival, it is naturally deemed that customers and their loyalty orchestrate the brand’s reputation in the market. Today, edging ahead of the competitors, however, takes more than just selling services or products.

A very important aspect of customer loyalty is the post purchase customer journey. It initiates after the first sale is made and completes when a customer returns to buy another product. However, many businesses fail to realize this and thus, occurs a break in what could have been a long-lasting relationship.

As seen in most cases, the business-facing this hurdle often does not understand that this problem persists only because of their strategy. And is mostly linked to a poor feedback system including instant feedback at the time of sales and a physical copy of the bill. Additionally, in a physical world, the seller also tends to lose a customer because of a lack of data and engagement platforms. Although the limitations take a fall when the platform is shifted to online commerce, a vast majority of businesses still do not flourish. Notably, because of lesser interactive Digital Bills, very little or no feedback via SMS and e-mail, and no profiling of customers via features such as connected Net Promoter Score (NPS).

The lack of such mandatory services, therefore, creates a post-purchase customer journey broken in all aspects. The ramifications of which then lead to bad customer experience, low customer retention, minimal growth aspects and low customer engagement, all of which reflect a passable brand value.

To overpower this shortcoming, the businesses must remember from the get-go that post-purchase data is invaluable if collected, analyzed and worked upon in the right manner. However, to do so, it is also worthy to note that the mechanism to engage customers in real-time requires personalised offerings over and above their expectations.

5 ways in which you can ensure that your post-purchase customer journey is never broken.

• Smart Receipts over Digital Bills: The preliminary way to draw in customers after-sale, is the generation of smart receipts over static Digital Bills. This smarter solution and personalized offering have an add-on value because it is an interactive platform.
• Using connected Net Promoter Score (NPS): Attaching an NPS metric to your customer can be of utmost use. It can be used to predict customer purchase and referral behaviour by measuring their satisfaction levels over a specific interaction or event. For instance, you can ask the customer to give feedback on how likely he/she to refer the service to his family or friends.
• Cross-selling: Under cross-selling, group enterprises can send customers from one brand to other interlinked brands using interactive Digital Bills. This helps in better retention whilst making the customers feel privileged.
• Gamification of Rewards: Offering scratch cards of allied brands or a certain discount with a minimum amount of purchase can generate bigger sales revenue. For instance, shop for Rs 15000 and get a chance to shop for Rs 2500 for free with an allied brand.
• Customer Support: Quick response to a customer query plays a vital role in providing post-purchase satisfaction. It is also worth noting that a detailed and easy step-by-step guide to contact customer service should be displayed on the site. Faltering at this step could result in losing both customer and future sales.

Understanding that the real customer experience begins after a product or service is sold, makes all the difference. Every customer is a potential brand advertiser if the post-purchase customer experience is done right, and it all starts with an interactive e-receipt.