Keeping the customer online

Keeping the customer online
Brand loyalty in the online world is far more fragile than the real world. Graham Moore, e-retail specialist, Zeus Technology looks at the importance of maintaining a consistent online brand presence to avoid customer churn and says it’s vital that web traffic is prioritised and managed effectively.

Brand loyalty in the online world is far more fragile than the real world. It’s great if customers are prepared to keep coming back to your website again and again, so making sure they can access all areas of a website at all times is a key way to keeping them happy. Unlike the 9-5 hours of the high street, customers expect a brand’s online presence to be open for business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

If companies are going to keep customer loyalty high, it’s important web traffic is prioritised and managed effectively. This will ensure that the customer can access the full range of web products and services during peaks in online activity, both unexpected and those caused by a successful marketing campaign. This is crucial not only for transactional sales areas of a site, to ensure all online sales are processed, but also for customers trust.

There are few key ways to make sure a brand’s digital presence is maintained and that downtime doesn’t result in unnecessary customer churn:

1. Communication between IT and Marketing
Communication between marketers and IT teams is an important step in discussing upcoming activities that are in the pipeline. Successful online promotions often attract high levels of web traffic so the marketing team needs to work with the IT team to ensure solutions are in place to manage peaks in demand. Equally marketers need to be kept updated on any planned technical work that could hinder the success of an online marketing campaign.

Zeus conducted research showed two thirds (65 per cent) of marketing professionals never or rarely meet with their IT department to prepare for peaks in website traffic. This is something that needs to change if companies are to avoid the unnecessary impact downtime has on loyalty and in turn, the ROI campaigns generate.

2. Adjusting campaigns for the mobile consumer
With the marked rise in smartphone usage, it is crucial to ensure a strategy is in place to accommodate an influx of visitors to mobile sites. Extravagant and media rich content may look great, but if an unexpected rise in the number of visitors to a mobile makes the site slow and inaccessible, it’s probably better to consider a more straightforward format. With simple branding in place, visitors will be able to recognise the companies they trust and then most importantly access the services and information they look for. This is particularly important for mobile sites with transactional area, where maintaining steady mobile Internet traffic is vital for the customer’s peace of mind.

3. Keep the customer active on your site
Aside from loss in revenue during periods of downtime, organisations will be subject to significant customer churn if they fail to deliver when their customers need them most. Proactively managing web traffic will ensure all visitors can access the information and services they need online. This will crucially also take away the potential headache downtime brings for those trying to run a successful campaign.

If a customer is not exposed to downtime, they will have no cause for complaint. The key is to proactively make sure measures are in place to deal with traffic peaks to make every web hit counts. This will ensure customers are able to freely access the content and products they want and tempt them to return.