Week 1

Introduction to satisfaction guaranteed: develop customer loyalty online

ou will learn about the importance of loyalty in e-commerce and explore how to build strong customer relationships. You’ll also find out how to measure customer satisfaction. After that, you’ll explore techniques for retaining customers like offering loyalty programs, practicing dynamic remarketing, and implementing post-purchase follow-ups.

Dedication to study

Videos: 33 min
Leitura: 1 h 40 min
Teste: 1 Teste com avaliação

Learning Objectives

Identify common strategies for building customer loyalty in e-commerce.
Understand how to successfully manage client relationships and measure satisfaction.
Use client relationship skills to communicate with customers.

Content

Getting started with the course
Customer loyalty and rewards
Develop client relationship management skills
Review: Introduction to satisfaction guaranteed: develop customer loyalty online

1. Getting started with the course

Introduction to Course 7

Video Duration: 1 minute

Welcome back and congratulations. You’ve reached the last course of this certificate program. Getting to this final course is a huge achievement. Let’s take a moment to review the topics you’ve learned so far. If you’re completing the certificate in order, you started by learning the foundations of e-commerce and digital marketing. Then you spent three courses exploring digital marketing concepts, including social media marketing and advertising, email marketing, and marketing analytics practice and tools. Finally, you completed the first of two e-commerce courses, where you learned how businesses sell products online and how to build your own e-commerce store. So, what’s next? This course covers three topics. First, you’ll explore concepts related to customer loyalty and retention. Next, you will learn more about e-commerce analytics tools and how they apply to e-commerce stores. Finally, you will focus on developing job readiness skills and techniques for applying to jobs. You’ll also complete a scenario based project that demonstrates your knowledge of digital marketing and e-commerce principles. Before we get started, I want to introduce myself. My name is Mike. I’m a global performance curriculum manager here at Google. It’s a long title, but it means that I work with different sales and product teams like Google to develop curriculum and education strategies that enable our sales teams and advertisers to successfully use our advertising solutions to meet their objectives. During my time at Google, I’ve partnered with brands and agencies of all sizes, from small businesses to large corporations. I’ve helped develop their advertising strategies and worked with them to launch, troubleshoot, and optimize their campaigns to meet their business and marketing goals. All of my experience in this industry has led me here to you. I hope you’re excited and ready to go. Let’s get started by getting familiar with the work you’ll complete in the first section of the course.

Course 7 overview

Reading Duration: 20 minutes

Welcome to the seventh and final course of the program, Satisfaction Guaranteed: Develop Customer Loyalty Online. By the end of this course, you will understand strategies and tools needed to build and maintain customer loyalty in e-commerce. You’ll complete a series of activities that demonstrate your ability to deliver a successful e-commerce product. Finally, you’ll wrap up the course by working on skills you can use to find a job and advance in your career.

Course progress

The entire program has seven courses. Satisfaction Guaranteed: Develop Customer Loyalty Online is the seventh course in the series.

Foundations of Digital Marketing and E-commerce

—Learn about the fields of digital marketing and e-commerce and the skills needed for associate-level roles.

Attract and Engage Customers with Digital Marketing

—Apply the marketing funnel concept to stages of the customer journey, including engagement, conversion, and loyalty. Learn methods for search engine optimization so potential customers find your products or services.

From Likes to Leads: Interact with Customers Online

—Learn how to create marketing content and ads on social media platforms and evaluate their effectiveness using social media analytics data.

Think Outside the Inbox: Email Marketing

—Learn how to execute email campaigns, use mailing lists, and automate customer communication and workflows.

Assess for Success: Marketing Analytics and Measurement

—Learn how to collect, monitor, analyze, and present data from marketing campaigns using analytics and presentation tools.

Make the Sale: Build, Launch, and Manage E-commerce Stores

—(current course) Learn the process to create a new e-commerce store and drive traffic to the online business through advertising campaigns.

Satisfaction Guaranteed: Develop Customer Loyalty Online

—Learn strategies to build customer loyalty in e-commerce and use specific tools to help develop and maintain client relationships. This course also closes out the program with professional development topics to help you prepare for a job search.

Course 7 content

This course has weekly assignments. You can complete them at your own pace; however, the weekly assignments are designed to help you finish the program in six months or fewer. Refer to the information below about weekly progression for this course.

Week 1: Introduction to Satisfaction guaranteed: Develop customer loyalty online

You will learn about the importance of loyalty in e-commerce and explore how to build strong customer relationships. You’ll also find out how to measure customer satisfaction. After that, you’ll explore techniques for retaining customers like offering loyalty programs, practicing dynamic remarketing, and implementing post-purchase follow-ups.

Week 2: Analyze trends for an online store

You will examine how to gather and analyze data for an online store. You’ll learn how to use the data you’ve gathered to improve conversions and increase sales. You’ll also learn how to identify which products are performing well or underperforming. Finally, you’ll discover ways to improve product performance based on data.

Week 3: Prepare for jobs in digital marketing and e-commerce

You will engage in a series of interactive activities based on concepts you’ve explored and skills you’ve gained throughout the program. You’ll also explore job readiness skills, develop your resume, and practice interviewing for jobs.

Week 4: Certificate review

You will review what you’ve learned throughout the Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Certificate. You’ll explore additional career resources and reflect on everything you’ve learned. At the end of the program, you’ll share your career goals with fellow learners.

What to expect

Each course offers a series of lessons with many types of learning opportunities. These include:

Videos for instructors to teach new concepts and demonstrate the use of tools
Readings to introduce new ideas and build on the concepts from the videos
Discussion forums to share, explore, and reinforce lesson topics for better understanding
Discussion prompts to promote thinking and engagement in the discussion forums
Self reviews to practice tasks and check your results for accuracy or correctness
In-video quizzes to help your comprehension of content presented in videos
Practice quizzes to prepare you for graded quizzes
Graded quizzes to measure your progress, give you valuable feedback, and satisfy program completion to obtain a certificate—Following program guidelines, you can take a graded quiz multiple times to achieve a passing score of 80% or higher.

Tips for success

It is strongly recommended to take these courses—and go through the items in each lesson—in the order they appear because new information and concepts build on previous knowledge.
Participate in all learning opportunities to gain as much knowledge and experience as possible.
If something is confusing, don’t hesitate to replay a video, review a reading, or repeat a self-review activity.
Use the additional resources that are referenced throughout the program. They are designed to support your learning.
When you encounter useful links in a course, remember to bookmark them so you can refer to the information later for study or review.
Understand and follow the Coursera Code of Conduct to ensure that the learning community remains a welcoming, friendly, and supportive place for all members.

Helpful resources to get started

Reading Duration: 20 minutes

As a learner, you can complete this course only. However, to obtain a certificate, you must complete all the courses in the program. This reading describes what is required to obtain a certificate and best practices for you to have a good learning experience on the platform.

Course completion to obtain a certificate

To receive your official Google Digital Marketing and E-commerce Certificate, you must:

Pass all graded assignments in all 7 courses of the certificate program. Each graded assignment is part of a cumulative graded score for the course, and the passing grade for each course is 80%.

AND one of the following:

Pay the course certificate fee,
Be approved for Coursera Financial Aid, or
Complete the certificate through an educational institution, employer, or agency that’s sponsoring your participation.

Healthy habits for course completion

Here is a list of best practices that will help you complete the courses in the program in a timely manner:

Plan your time: Setting regular study times and sticking with them each week can help you make learning a part of your routine. Use a calendar or timetable to create a schedule, and list what you plan to do each day in order to break your work down into achievable goals. Create a quiet place to watch the videos, review the readings, and complete the activities so you can really focus on the material.

Work at your own pace: Everyone learns differently, so this program has been designed to let you work at your own pace. Although your personalized deadlines start when you enroll, they are just a guide. Feel free to move through the program at the speed that works best for you. There is no penalty for late assignments; to earn your certificate, all you have to do is complete all of the work. If you prefer, you can extend your deadlines by returning to Overview in the navigation panel to click Switch Sessions. If you already missed previous deadlines, click Reset my deadlines instead.

Be curious: If you find an idea that gets you excited, act on it! Ask questions, search for more details online, check out the links that interest you, and take notes on your discoveries. The little things you do to support your learning along the way will take your knowledge even further, open more doors in this high-growth field, and help you qualify for jobs.

Take notes: Notes are useful-to-remember information that you think might be important in the future, especially as you’re preparing to enter a new job field. In addition, taking notes is an effective way to make connections between topics and gain a better understanding of those topics.

Chat (responsibly) with other learners: If you have a question, chances are, you’re not alone. Reach out in the discussion forum to ask for help from other learners in this program. You can also visit Coursera’s Global Online

Community: Other important things to know while learning with virtual classmates can be found in the Coursera Honor Code and Code of Conduct.

Update your profile: Consider updating your profile on Coursera. This link appears in the menu when you click on your name at the top-right corner of this screen. When classmates find you in the discussion forums, they can click on your name to view your profile and get to know you more.

Documents, spreadsheets, and presentations for course activities

To complete certain activities in the program, you will need to use digital documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Marketing professionals use these software tools to collaborate within their teams and organizations. If you need more information about using a particular tool, refer to these resources:

Microsoft Word: Help and learning: Microsoft Support page for Word
Google Docs: Help Center page for Google Docs
Microsoft Excel: Help and learning: Microsoft Support page for Excel
Google Sheets: Help Center page for Google Sheets
Microsoft PowerPoint: Help and learning: Microsoft Support page for PowerPoint
How to use Google Slides: Help Center page for Google Slides

Course glossary

This course will cover a lot of terms and concepts, some of which you may already know and some of which will be new. To remind yourself about what a term means, or to help you review concepts for graded quizzes, refer to the Glossary for this course.

Course feedback

Providing feedback on videos, readings, and other materials is easy. With the resource open in your browser, look for the thumbs-up and thumbs-down symbols.

Click thumbs-up for materials that are helpful.
Click thumbs-down for materials that are not helpful.

If you want to flag a specific issue with an item, click the flag icon, select a category, and enter an explanation in the text box. This feedback goes back to the course development team and isn’t visible to other learners. All feedback received helps to create even better certificate programs in the future.

2. Customer loyalty and rewards

Welcome to week 1

Video Duration: 39 seconds

It’s time to think back. If you’re taking the courses in order, you’ll remember discussing the role loyalty plays in marketing and e-commerce. As a refresher, loyalty is the last stage in the marketing funnel after awareness, consideration, and conversion. In short, during the loyalty stage, customers become repeat customers and brand advocates. Ideally, they become voices of the brand. In this section of the course, you will review how loyalty is created in an e-commerce business, explore loyalty strategies and tactics like rewards programs and dynamic remarketing, and learn techniques businesses use to develop relationships with their customers.

Introduction to customer loyalty

Video Duration: 4 minutes

What comes to mind when you think about loyalty? Maybe it’s a family pet, maybe it’s a commitment to your favorite sports team, or maybe it’s a relationship with someone in your life. Whatever comes to mind, it likely involves a strong feeling of support or allegiance. We demonstrate loyalty when we form an emotional attachment to someone or something. In relationships, loyalty is built on trust. It’s fostered by a sense of belonging and community and it motivates people to stay connected. In e-commerce, loyalty is built the same way. As a refresher, loyalty is the last stage in the marketing funnel. Loyalty is where customers become repeat customers and brand advocates. Loyalty is based on the trust that a customer places in a business. When customers feel a sense of community and connection to that business, their loyalty becomes even stronger. Let’s consider some of the ways you can build loyalty. You may remember learning about some of these strategies earlier in the program. But now we’re going to examine how they apply to e-commerce. First, let’s talk about building trust. In e-commerce, you can build trust by making sure to offer quality products that meet your customers’ needs. Providing a quality guarantee, upholding a generous return policy, and offering free shipping and returns can help build trust by removing the customer’s worries that the product might not meet their expectations. In order to build trust, you also need to provide quality customer service throughout the customer journey, including after the customer has made a purchase. Another important way to build trust is to protect customers’ personal and financial information. Customers need to know that you’ll keep their information confidential and secure. That can mean adding a trust badge or a seal to the checkout page and ensuring customers that their email address won’t be shared with other companies. Why is this important? When customers trust a business, they’re more likely to become loyal customers. Loyal customers are the building block for a strong brand. Now, let’s talk about building loyalty by creating a sense of community and belonging. If customers feel a sense of connection with the business, they’re more likely to become loyal. In e-commerce, you can nurture a sense of community online by engaging with customers on social media. You can also encourage customers to share their experience with other customers through user-generated content. This might involve customers writing product reviews, uploading photos or videos, engaging in the question and answer section on a product page, or joining a forum. You can also build a sense of community by sharing the story behind your brand and demonstrating how your values align with customers’ values. According to research, 77 percent of consumers buy from brands who share their values. Customers want to feel good about their purchase. For example, connecting with customer values could mean sharing a passion for the outdoors, caring for the environment, or advocating for change in society’s perception of beauty. Another way to connect with customers’ values is by donating a portion of sales to communities in need. For example, a company that sells clothing might donate a pair of socks to a homeless shelter every time someone makes a purchase on their site. A program like this not only demonstrates the company’s values in action, but it allows customers to be involved in doing good as well. Finally, you can build loyalty by making it easy for customers to stay connected. One way to do this is by offering customers a subscription for products they might buy on a regular basis, such as razors, vitamins, or printer ink. It’s a good idea to give customers the ability to choose how often they want the product delivered and make the subscription easy to cancel so that customers don’t feel locked in. Another way to stay connected is through dynamic remarketing, which allows you to show previous visitors ads that contain products and services they viewed on your site. Since these ads are specifically tailored to your customers, they create a personalized experience focused on products or services that the customer has already showed an interest in. Email marketing is another way to stay connected with customers. It gives you the opportunity to deliver valuable content based on a customer’s interests. For example, you can use data to personalize email campaigns by sending a reminder email if someone abandons their cart, or by suggesting products related to a product the customer already purchased. You can also use email as a helpful reminder, such as letting the customer know when it’s time to reorder contacts or flip the new mattress they bought. Another popular way to stay connected is through a rewards program, sometimes called a loyalty program, that creates incentives for customers to return to your business. You’ll learn more about rewards programs later. Building loyalty happens over time as a company demonstrates that it cares about its customers. You can do this by building trust, creating a sense of community, and making it easy for customers to stay connected. Although loyalty is the last stage in the marketing funnel, it’s one of the most valuable opportunities for a company to grow. Happy customers are more likely to come back and they’re more likely to tell others about your business. Next up, you’ll learn more about strategies for building loyalty in e-commerce.

Rewards programs

Video Duration: 6 minutes

A good loyalty strategy is designed to create repeat customers, and increase conversion rates. One of the most effective loyalty strategies are rewards programs, often called a loyalty program. Rewards program is a marketing method designed to build customer loyalty by providing incentives to returning customers. These incentives can include but aren’t limited to, free products, free shipping, discounts, coupons, or even cashback for purchases. Before we talk about some common types of loyalty programs, let’s discuss where e-commerce customers might first encounter them. Since it’s in the best interest of companies to get customers returned to make more purchases, it is up to them to make the enrollment process as simple as possible. There are two common and easy ways e-commerce businesses prompt customers to enroll in loyalty programs. The first is with pop up messages that appear on a customer’s screen, within the first couple of seconds of visiting a website. They usually offer an incentive for just signing up, and entering an email address. The second rewards program enrollment method comes at the end of an online purchasing journey, this method is more subtle. While completing their purchase customers can choose to enroll in a rewards program, and receive future offers. It’s common for businesses to automatically enroll customers in rewards programs, that are at no cost to the customer. In these cases the customer must specifically opt out of the rewards program, a benefit of automatic enrollment is that it helps the brand create a larger customer base quickly. However, a drawback could be that it weakens trust in a brand, since some customers believe that it was done deceptively. Now that you know what a rewards program is, and how customers can enroll, let’s discuss different types, in the e-commerce industry. The most common rewards programs include, points programs, spend based programs, tier based programs, and subscriptions. There are other types of rewards programs that exist, but for now, let’s go deeper into each of these. A points model is a rewards program that offers customers a point equivalent for a determined monetary value spent over the course of several purchases. These points can be redeemed for an incentive, once a customer reaches a certain number of points. For example, a kitchenware e-commerce store may offer customers one point, for every dollar they spend. When customers reach 100 points, the business rewards the customer with a free bowl. Next, are spend based programs. A spend-based model is a rewards program that offers customers incentives based on an amount spent during a single purchase. They are similar to points based programs in that they encourage customers to reach a certain spending goal, in order to achieve an incentive. However these programs focus on gaining a larger short term value. For example, an online retailer may offer customers free shipping on all purchases more than $100. Alternatively, a tier based model is a rewards program that allows customers to graduate to new customer status levels based on the amount of money they spend with a company over time. The more money they spend, the higher tier they gain access to and the better benefits and incentives they are offered. For example, a company might offer three customers, three tiers, bronze if they spend below $50, silver if they spend between 50 and $100, and gold if they spend over $100. With every purchase range, a customer will receive better rewards offers, the final type of common rewards programs is a subscription program. Unlike the other programs mentioned, a subscription model is a rewards program that requires customers to make a recurring payment in order to receive an exclusive incentive. For example, an online clothing retailer may offer next day delivery, for customers who pay an annual fee of $20. Customers who don’t pay for this program will have to wait the standard week, for their shipment to arrive. If the rewards program is a paid program, like in a subscription program, businesses should never automatically enroll customers in an unwanted service. Instead, businesses should include separate messaging to allow customers to explore the details of the rewards program on their own during another time. By now I’m sure the concept of rewards program seems pretty simple, right? If a business offers some type of incentive, then customers will return in the future to make more purchases. However, this is just the basics. There needs to be more consideration that goes into creating a successful rewards program, that isn’t just focused on one off reminders that your company exists. By this, short term promotions alone don’t always lead to true customer loyalty. Even if your company offers great reward program incentives, there may be other companies with better prices on similar products. This may cause those customers that you considered loyal to switch where they choose to buy without hesitation. To create more effective and successful e-commerce rewards programs, businesses should consider the following questions. First, how can we personalize our rewards program experience? Personalization is about making an experience tailored to an individual. Many businesses achieve this by using tactics like including the customer’s name in all program communications, and interactions. This makes customers feel valued, for example, a hobby of mine is running, and I’m a member of a variety of rewards programs for different sports apparel brands. If two of these brands send me emails about their new sneaker launches, I’m more likely to open the email that says, hi Mike, check out our new shoe. Launch over one that says, check out our new sneakers, since the first one feels more personal to me. Another tactic is providing incentives to groups of customers based on their shopping habits. For example, if data shows that a customer usually waits until there’s free shipping before buying, signing them a just because offer for free shipping encourages them to shop. This will also help them be more willing to make an additional purchase. Second, how can a rewards program be both desirable and attainable? Rewards programs work best when they have offers that are attractive enough for customers to want to be a part of the program, but also easily accessible for customers. For example, a customer’s rewards program that requires customers to spend $100 for a small discount like 5% off their next purchase, isn’t as desirable as a rewards program that requires customers to spend $100 for 25% on their next purchase. Finding the right balance can be hard, but it is a must for attracting return customers. Third, ask yourself, how can we create community within our customer base? While customers may only be looking for products to buy, some of them enjoy feeling like they are part of something bigger. Fostering community outlets for your company can be a great way to ensure that those customers stay loyal to your brand. For example, a book company could just sell novels, but after a customer buys a book, it could be hard to predict if the customer would return after they’ve completed it. Instead, they could create a virtual book club as a part of their rewards programs. That way the customer will find a likeminded community that shares an interest in books just as much as they do, every time they purchase a new novel. It would likely be through the bookstore that the rewards program is a part of. Keeping these considerations in mind are a great start to creating a loyal customer base that believes in, and values a business. Move on to continue learning more about creating and retaining loyal customers.

Dynamic remarketing

Video Duration: 2 minutes

Have you ever been shopping online, got distracted by something and forgot to finish what you started? Or maybe you found an item you liked online but weren’t quite ready to buy it? Dynamic remarketing with Google Ads is a way to re-engage customers who have viewed products on your site previously. These customers are familiar with your store and have considered buying a product, but for some reason they haven’t completed their purchase yet. Maybe they need more time to make a decision or maybe they need to be reminded that your product or deal is too good to miss. Either way, dynamic remarketing helps you re-engage these customers and drive loyalty by displaying ads that feature a personalized message that’s tailored to your audience. This type of remarketing engages visitors who have already started thinking about making a purchase from your store. It encourages these visitors to return to your store and complete their purchase. Dynamic remarketing works by displaying ads for products that customers have already viewed or similar products they might be interested in. The Google Ads product recommendation engine determines the best mix of products to display for each ad. The result is a personalized experience that features products based on popularity and what the visitor viewed on your site. Showing products that are similar to the one a customer already viewed can help them discover products they might have found otherwise. Maybe the product they viewed previously wasn’t quite what they hoped to find, but a similar product would be just what they wanted. Let’s imagine an online jewelry store, for example, with customers that might be considering a big purchase. These customers might need extra time to make their decision. They might also want to shop around for the best quality product and the best deal. Using dynamic remarketing, the jewelry store can display ads for products the customer viewed on their site as well as similar products the customer might like. By connecting with the customer in this way, the jewelry store can keep their brand in front of the customer as the customer moves through the process of making their purchasing decision. Dynamic remarketing is an effective way to connect with customers because you’re reaching out to customers who are already interested in your products and motivated to buy. These customers may have also purchased from your store in the past. Dynamic remarketing allows your store to retain these customers and encourage them to continue the relationship with your business. It’s one of the ways an e-commerce store can build loyalty and stay connected with their customers over time. Coming up, you’ll learn more about building relationships with your customers.

Case study: How Wayfair uses email marketing for personalization

Reading Duration: 20 minutes

Email marketing is an effective way to connect with customers and build loyalty. Companies can use email marketing to attract new customers and keep in touch with existing customers. In this case study, you’ll discover how e-commerce home retailer Wayfair, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, uses email marketing to share information, drive sales, and build loyalty. You’ll also learn how Wayfair uses email marketing for personalization, which is the practice of delivering a customized experience for each customer.

Company background

Longtime friends Niraj Shah and Steve Conine started the online-only company in 2002 after deciding they wanted to offer a larger selection of choices to customers—more than could fit in a brick-and-mortar space. They started the company as a collection of more than 200 e-commerce stores, each selling separate categories of products. In 2011, the company combined these sites to establish wayfair.com.

Wayfair is now one of the world’s largest home retailers. The company’s goal is to help everyone, anywhere, create their feeling of home. It empowers customers to create spaces that reflect who they are, what they need, and what they value.

The challenge

Email marketing is one of the core drivers for growth at Wayfair. In fact, it’s the second largest marketing channel the company uses.

Wayfair’s goal is to provide each of its customers with the content they need at just the right time in their shopping journey. The challenge is figuring out how to make this happen.

Because customers are at various points in their shopping journey—which means they’re also in various stages of the marketing funnel—they need different types of content at different times. Sending the same emails to all customers doesn’t provide a personalized experience.

Some customers might be hesitant to purchase furniture online or buy from a company that’s new to them. They’re in the awareness stage of the marketing funnel.

Other customers might be researching products but are not ready to buy yet. They’re in the consideration stage of the funnel.

Another group of customers might have made a purchase recently but realize they need an accessory that goes with the product they just bought. They’ve moved through the conversion stage and reached the loyalty stage, where they decide to become a repeat customer.

Since each group of customers is in a different stage of the marketing funnel, Wayfair customizes its email campaigns to fit each group’s needs.

The approach

Wayfair’s email marketing campaigns aren’t a one-size-fits-all approach. They focus on personalization by sending the content that customers want at the times they want to receive it.

The company’s email strategy is based on where customers are in the shopping journey:

A new customer might receive a welcome email that introduces the company and highlights a variety of product categories the customer might be interested in.
A customer who recently visited the site might receive an email that features several products or categories the customer viewed while browsing the site.
A customer who recently made a purchase might later receive an email that features related products or accessories. For example, if the customer bought an area rug, they might receive recommendations for a pad that goes under the rug.
A customer who hasn’t visited the site in a while might receive an email with inspirational content and ideas to help them create a space that feels like home.

Below is an example of content sent to new email subscribers. The email has the subject line Welcome home! The email’s body introduces Wayfair and makes it easy to shop for a variety of the company’s products. Recipients simply click Start Shopping.

Email to new Wayfair customers contains an image showcasing living room furniture and accessories with the text - Welcome to Everything Home. A button with the text “Start Shopping” is prominently featured on the image

The results

Using machine learning, the company tests ways to improve and personalize the product recommendations in its emails. This approach allows Wayfair to test a campaign, evaluate what works and what doesn’t, and then make changes based on the results.

The personalization strategy for product recommendations was successful when the customer had purchased or viewed products recently. However, the longer it had been since the customer visited the site, the less effective these emails became. Both the content and timing of these emails were critical to their success.

The company also used testing to confirm that subject lines make a big difference in its email marketing campaigns. The subject lines that performed best were the ones that most closely matched the content included in the email. For promotional emails, calling out the promotion or discount in the subject line was highly effective. For example, if the body of an email contains the offer below, the subject line could be Save $20 on your next Wayfair purchase of $100 or more.

Wayfair promotion offers $20 off a purchase of $100 or more

The company also found that a smooth and delightful checkout and delivery process is more impactful than anything the company could include in its emails. If customers don’t have a good experience with their purchase, the company tries to make up for it by sending an email that offers a discount on the customer’s next purchase. The results from this email campaign have been highly successful, with about 50% of these customers returning to make another purchase.

Conclusion

As Wayfair’s story illustrates, providing a personalized experience to the customer can make a significant impact on connecting with customers and building loyalty. As you gain experience in the field of digital marketing and e-commerce, you’ll find that testing your ideas, experimenting with what works and what doesn’t, and applying the results are the keys to refining your marketing strategy.

Test your knowledge: Loyalty, remarketing, and rewards

Practice Quiz. 4 questions. Grade: 100%

3. Develop client relationship management skills

Post-purchase follow-up methods

Video Duration: 5 minutes

In this video, we will discuss methods for following up with your existing customers as well as tips to doing so effectively. The act of following up with customers is called post-purchase communication. It’s defined as any direct interaction customers have with a brand after they make a purchase. Since returning customers often make up a large portion of a company’s e-comm sales, post-purchase communication focuses on building relationships with existing customers. These communications are an effective way to boost traffic to your online store. They can also help your business stay in the minds of your customers and ahead of your competitors. Post-purchase communication doesn’t only benefit your store, it can make the customer feel like they made the right purchasing decisions. This can lead to an increase in brand loyalty and advocacy as well. Have you ever made a purchase online only to feel like you made a mistake once the transaction was complete? That sense of regret after having made a purchase is called “buyer’s remorse.” According to a report, over 50 percent of online shopper survey respondents shared they have experienced buyer’s remorse. Post-purchase communication can help ease these feelings by reinforcing positive feelings about the customer experience. Let’s discuss how. First, there are a few post-purchase communication methods. The ones you’ll start off with are emails, social media, and direct mail. Starting with perhaps the easiest method for reaching your existing customer base, emails are extremely popular for post-purchase communication. This is in large part due to the variety of aspects you can include in your emails. Here are a few examples of different types. First, there are “thank you” emails that provide short and nice follow-up sentiments that show your appreciation for their business. “Thank you” emails often make customers feel that a business truly appreciates them making a purchase. There are also review request emails. Essentially, these emails have two jobs. They provide necessary data on your customer’s experience with your brand, and if it’s positive, it provides a glowing endorsement of one of your products. Another email type is a customer satisfaction survey. This type of email usually lets customers rate products using some type of scale system. Customer satisfaction surveys are intended to measure how products and services meet or surpass customer expectations. Lastly, a company may choose to send replenishment emails. Replenishment emails are used to prompt customers to make a repeat purchase when the items they previously bought are about to run out. These emails are highly effective. For example, if a customer is about to run out of their favorite lavender shampoo they purchased on an online site two months ago, they may forget to order it again. But if they receive a convenient message letting them know that it’s time to purchase a new bottle, they’ll be more inclined to do so at that moment. We’ve reviewed emails. Now let’s discuss our next post-purchase communication methods, social media. Social media is a great way to reach your customers. With the popularity of hashtags on various sites, you can always check to see what conversations your brand is a part of. For example, let’s imagine that a baseball fan creates a social media post that includes a photo of them wearing a new hat they just ordered online from a company named Johnny Jonnie Jon sportswear. In the post they even decide to tag the company. If the company keeps up with hashtags and mentions, they’ll be able to see this mention quickly. The company can respond directly to the customer and share they’re happy that the customer is satisfied with the purchase. Additionally, with the customer’s permission, they can even repost the photo on their page. This could spark even more interest in the brand from people who follow either the company or the customer. The last method for delivering post-purchase communication is via direct mail. Sending letters or brand information through the mail certainly predates the other two mentioned previously. However, mail delivery can have a classic charm that is unmatched by digital methods. This is because some customers believe that it shows that the company puts thoughtfulness and care into it. This method can be more time-consuming, but for some, it’s greatly appreciated. Whatever method you decide on, you want to remember a few tips to make it effective and have your customers come back. First, always personalize the experience. You want your relationship with your customers to feel intimate. Greet them by their actual names, instead of referring to them using formal name fillers like “customer” or “resident” You could also add a personal element to the customer-business relationship by reaching out to them on days that they’ve identified were important, like their birthday. Next, pace your communication. I’ll admit it, as an online shopper, I can get pretty frustrated when I receive multiple messages from brands. Instead, remember to pace your communication so that your customers aren’t overwhelmed by the onslaught of messages from your brand. The last tip is to offer customers incentives to shop. Offering discounts or free money can be a great way to encourage customers to return to your online store. Not only does it let customers know you want them to shop, but it lets them know that you appreciate their business. As you continue to build relationships with your customers, remember that your communication should always strike a balance between promotional and engaging. You want your audience to feel that you are being genuine and sincere while also growing your business.

Survey customers and ask effective questions

Video Duration: 5 minutes

Surveying your customers is a way to get the feedback you need from your customers. It helps you understand their needs as well as their interests. In this video, we’ll discuss customer surveys and how you can ask effective questions to get necessary information. A customer survey is a tool to measure how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectations. As an e-commerce professional, these surveys are valuable because they can help with the growth of your business. Customer surveys can help you learn demographics like general age, where your customers live and work, or customer interests and hobbies and issues customers had related to their shopping experience. This type of data will help you to create a better idea of who your customers are. When you analyze your results you’ll be able to better reach and communicate with groups of customers based on this information. There are two customer survey categories. A pre-purchase survey is a survey conducted before products are made. A post-purchase survey is a survey conducted after the customer has checked out. Before you begin creating your survey, it’s important to define your goal. Aimlessly recreated questions to ask your customers can result in a lot of random data. To avoid this, ask yourself, what I want to learn from my customers? This can be things like, how do I improve my customer retention rate or what parts of my website need improvement. Once you’ve defined your goals, it’s time to move on to create clear and concise questions for your survey. There are many tips for creating your great survey questions. Here are a few. First, avoid asking leading questions. Leading questions nudge your participants to answer a certain way. For example, asking, “Do you like our website, right?” Pressures the customer into answering yes, simply based on the way the question is framed. These questions can cause you to receive biased data. Instead, try asking open-ended questions like, “On a scale of one to five, rate your shopping experience today.” Then follow up with an open forum that ask them to explain their answer. Secondly, avoid providing answer options that overlap. Can cause confusion if there are two possible correct answers. For example, if a 35-year-old is trying to answer the question, “How old are you,” but the only answer choices are, A. Between 25 and 35 or B. Between 35 and 45. They may be at a loss for which option is right for them. Instead, write the options as. A. Between 25 and 34. B. Between 35 and 44. That way, the only correct answer is B. Third. Be respectful and inclusive. As e-commerce specialist, it’s important to recognize that asking personal questions can be a sensitive and challenging space to navigate. Be conscious and mindful of the specific questions surveys and how you ask them. Lastly, remember to make sure that you use your brand’s tone of voice. This refers to how your company chooses to express itself. For example, let’s imagine a clothing store for kids that has a playful new ventures brand. If they create a customer survey using a formal greeting like “Dear Sir or Madam, please take time to complete our customer survey. Some customers may be confused by the seriousness of the tone. Instead, they want to go with something like, “Hi there. Do you mind completing our customer survey? Notice the difference that makes. The second one creates a welcoming tone that the customer is recognized and appreciated. Keep these tips in mind as you’re creating questions. Once you’re ready, start creating your questions. These will range based on your industry. Pre-purchase survey questions will likely include questions that seek to understand who the customer is and what they’re shopping for. For example, who are you shopping for or which of your products or categories are you most interested in? Post-purchase survey questions will include questions that want to understand how the customer experience was. These will be questions like, “What is one thing we can improve about our website experience? Or do you anticipate purchasing from us again in the future? Post-purchase survey questions can also include questions that get customers to provide information about themselves. This helps you target them in the future so that they can return to your website. These include questions for event promotional opportunities like when is your birthday, or questions related to brand advertising on a scale of one to ten, how likely are you to recommend our company to a friend? After scripting all of your questions for your survey, complete the following checklist for each question. Is the wording used in this question is simple and easy to understand. Questions that use jargon can confuse your customers. Instead, opt for simple language. Does this question ask too much personal information? If so, the customer might feel that their privacy is being invaded. Change the question to be more general. Is this question too complex? These can be questions that involve multiple sentences or steps to complete and can make a user quit the survey prematurely. Review what items can be cut before finalizing your questions. Lastly, does this question make an assumption about my customer? For example, if you are an e-commerce specialist for a- handbag store, do some of your questions. Assume that your customers identify as women based on the wording. If so, change the question to fit in more neutral audience. When you’re ready, you can make your survey live on your website or send it via e-mail. Once you get enough completed surveys, use the data to build your customer list and implement changes to your buying or marketing experiences. Have fun creating great survey questions

Activity: Write a customer satisfaction survey

Practice Quiz. 1 question. Grade: 100%
- Access Quiz:

On Step 1: Access the template

To use the template for this course item, click the link below and select “Use Template.”

Link to template: Customer satisfaction survey

Activity Exemplar: Write a customer satisfaction survey

Reading Duration: 10 minutes

Here is a completed exemplar along with an explanation of how the exemplar fulfills the expectations for the activity.

Completed Exemplar

To review the exemplar for this course item, click the link below and select “Use Template.”

Link to exemplar: Customer satisfaction survey

Assessment of Exemplar

Compare the exemplar to your completed customer satisfaction survey. Review your work using each of the criteria in the exemplar. What did you do well? Where can you improve? Use your answers to these questions to guide you as you continue to progress through the course.

Your customer satisfaction survey should include:

One to two sentences inviting the customer to take the survey, written in the company’s brand voice
Three sensitively-worded demographics questions that are inclusive and relevant to the goal of the survey
A satisfaction scale matrix that includes at least five criteria you want customers to evaluate and a range of customer responses
An NPS question with terms that indicate the value of the numbers on the scale
Two open-ended questions that are short and simple, align with the goal of the survey, and encourage the customer to provide thoughtful, honest feedback

All survey questions should also be reviewed and revised according to the Customer Survey Question Checklist.

How to provide excellent customer service

Video Duration: 6 minutes

Hi there. Before we start, I have a great quote for you. It reads, courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement. These words were said by a famous American entrepreneur James Cash Penney. Of course JC Penney didn’t literally mean your customers would become an official promotional tool. He meant that building a great shopping experience for your customers will make your shoppers feel so good that they may choose to shop at your store again. They may even recommend your business to people they know. Globally 61% of consumers view customer service as very important. And customer service recently overtook price and product as the main factor that set brands apart while shopping. Customer service is defined as the advice and support a company provides to its customers before, during, and after a purchase. A great shopping experience includes how a brand approaches customer service. With so much emphasis placed on customer service, let’s explore ways you’ll implement great customer service into your e-commerce business. The first thing we need to decide is which channel you’ll use to provide support for your customers. Here you have a few options. The most common customer service channel for many business owners is email. Most e-commerce businesses provide an email address or contact form on their store’s website that customers can use to ask for support. In fact, Google requires businesses to list their email clearly on their site in order to advertise on Google shopping. You can use your email inbox to keep track of your customer communication. Emails are also a great way to manage the customer’s expectations on how soon they’ll receive a response. You can state your expected reply time in the description of your contact us section on your store’s website. Another common customer service channel is live chat. Live chat is customer service technology that allows customers to communicate in real time with the business representative. If a customer has a question about anything, they can have an answer in a moment’s notice. Be aware, this method is often used by larger companies who have the resources and budget to answer questions around the clock. Chatbots are a similar customer service channel. They offer direct customer business communication technology on the company’s website. However, unlike live chat, chatbots are programmed systems that respond to common customer questions. Chatbots are helpful because they provide a quick response to user questions. However, they aren’t equipped to handle complex interactions since they can only offer pre-programmed responses to specific questions. In the 4th customer service channel you may use is social media. This exciting platform is constantly evolving. With the rapid increase in popularity during the 2010s, it’s clear that social media is a communication tool that is here to stay. To keep up, many brands have begun providing customer service directly through platforms like Twitter and Facebook. If brands have their own social media accounts, they have the option of responding directly to customers publicly or privately. If you choose this route for your business, it’s best to offer customer service on social media platforms where you already have a presence or those used most by your customers. This will help you consolidate your customer communication efforts. The great thing is that you don’t have to be limited to just one customer service platform. You can offer a strategy that includes multi channel customer service which is providing customer service across multiple channels. If you’re taking the courses in the program in order, you may remember learning about this strategy. When it comes to providing quality customer service, it’s important to interact with customers in the way they choose. Whether it’s through the four channels we just covered or other channels like phone support or forums. No matter which channels you choose, it’s important to keep four key customer service aspects in mind. Get the issue resolved quickly, resolve it in one interaction, provide friendly customer service throughout, and follow up afterwards to ensure your customer is satisfied. To understand these aspects, let’s imagine Menal who loves the color green or is a green winter coat from the e-commerce store frosty flossie outerwear. But when it arrives there’s a problem. The shop actually shipped a blue coat instead. Menal has the option of choosing to chat live with a brand representative in a live chat on the store website. Or she could find the customer service email address listed on the company’s website. Instead she chooses to create a social media post about the mistake and tags of the company. Keeping our four customer service aspects in mind, the company responds within just a few hours of receiving a notification. Using kind welcoming language, the company acknowledges the mix up and offers to communicate privately to resolve the issue. Using direct messages, the company promises to correct the issue and offers a coupon discount on Menal’s next purchase. Once the new coat is delivered, the company can reach out to Menal to see if she’s satisfied with her new coat. And just like that, the issue is solved and the customers happy again. Of course, resolving customer complaints is just one aspect of customer service. Another aspect to consider is providing customers with all the information necessary to make a purchase. One of the ways you can do this is by creating a page on your website for frequently asked questions or FAQs for short. These pages provide extensive knowledge of the questions your customers might have regarding your business, products or services, policies, processes, and more. FAQ pages are helpful because they save you time responding general questions customers may have, build trust between brands and customers since FAQ pages demonstrate that your business has already considered common various scenarios, questions, and concerns. And that FAQ pages can even bring new traffic to your website. This is because of Google’s featured snippet section on some search pages. When users search a question related to one of your FAQs, your question and response is automatically pulled from your FAQ page that has been indexed by Google. Quality customer service is important to the success of any business, including an e-commerce store. Even though you may not end up working in the customer service department, your job in e-commerce will likely impact the customer experience in some way. Knowing the issues that customers face and taking their feedback into consideration can help you improve the customer experience. Okay, that wraps up providing excellent customer service. As you go forward, remember to keep the words of James Cash Penney and the customer in mind.

Identify: Review customer feedback and measure satisfaction

Ungraded Plugin Duration: 30 minutes

Measure customer satisfaction

Reading Duration: 20 minutes

How customers view a business is significantly based on their experiences with it and their own personal outcomes. Customer interactions with an online business, whether directly or indirectly, can affect if they choose to return in the future. That’s why it’s important for e-commerce businesses to constantly assess customer satisfaction.

Measuring customer satisfaction involves conducting research to determine the performance of products or services based on how they are perceived by customers. The benefit of measuring customer satisfaction is that it can help a business gain profit and competitive advantage. The following are steps on how to measure customer satisfaction.

1. Define goals

Before a business can begin to measure customer satisfaction, it must define what to improve. There are many steps to a buyer’s experience with an online store, including: selecting the item they want to purchase, the checkout process, and the item delivery. Each of these steps has the potential for something to go wrong, so it’s important to be specific when thinking about what research goal.

In an earlier course, you learned that goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Keep this in mind as you develop your goals.

Examples of goals are:

Reduce redundancies and customer friction.
Provide self-service options.
Replace the sales rep with e-commerce customer service agents.
Take customer reviews seriously.
Resolve issues quickly.
Resolve an issue in one interaction.
Ensure customer service representatives are friendly.
Being able to follow-up with the same person if necessary.
Being able to record, print, and save a copy of the interaction.
Follow up with customers afterwards to ensure they’re satisfied.

2. Choose a customer satisfaction survey type

As mentioned previously in a video, there are many types of customer surveys to gain insight to how customers feel about a business. The following are some common types of customer surveys.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Survey

Customer Satisfaction surveys—or CSAT surveys—are used to measure a customer’s satisfaction with products or services. To review the variety of customer satisfaction surveys, check out a previous video on customer survey.

Net Promoter ScoreⓇ (NPS) Survey

Net Promoter Score Surveys are single question surveys that ask respondents to rate the likelihood that they would recommend a company, product, or a service to a friend or colleague on a scale from 0 for not at all likely to 10 for extremely likely. Unlike general CSAT surveys that are intended to measure customer satisfaction with a specific service or brand, NPS surveys are intended to measure the loyalty of customers to a company. The scores are broken into three categories:

Promoters: responders with a score of 9 or 10. They are considered to be enthusiastic about the brand.
Passives: responders with a score of 7 or 8. They are considered satisfied but not as enthusiastic enough to promote the brand.
Detractors: responders with a score of 6 or less. They are considered to be unsatisfied and unlikely to shop with the business again.

To calculate a NPS score, businesses subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.

For example, if 15% are detractors and 60% are promoters, the overall NPS score is 45%.

Usability Survey

For e-commerce businesses, most of the purchase is done through the online store.

Usability surveys relate the customers’ satisfaction with the company’s website and identify any problems the customer may experience along their shopping journey.

3. Select a survey medium

Once you’ve selected a survey type, it’s time to select a survey medium. Different mediums can include:

In-app or on-site surveys
Post-service or post-purchase surveys
Long email surveys

Once a business receives customer feedback, they can view how customers feel about their brand, services, or products. They can choose to implement the feedback based on trends in the data collected to make customers more pleased with future shopping experiences.

Key Takeaways

Overall, businesses should strive to keep their customers happy. Purchases made by returning customers make up a large portion of future sales, so implementing helpful feedback is particularly important. By collecting positive and negative feedback, brands can effectively grow their business.

4. Review: Introduction to satisfaction guaranteed: develop customer loyalty online

Wrap-up

Video Duration: 1 minute

You’ve just completed the first section of this course. Let’s reflect on what you learned so far. You started out by revisiting the loyalty stage of the marketing funnel. Here you learned about how to use rewards programs and dynamic remarketing to retain customers. Then we discussed how to develop client relationship management skills This included post-purchase follow-up methods, surveying customers, and asking effective questions. Finally, we discovered how to provide excellent customer service. That’s a wrap on the first section of this course. In the next section of the course, you’ll continue learning about how to develop the skills needed for success in e-commerce. I’ll meet you there.