E-commerce giant. Retail phenomenon. One of the most valuable global brands — all terms used to describe Amazon. Since its launch in 1994, Amazon has blazed a trail across the Internet and beyond. In 2020, it earned $386 billion just in the United States, making it the country’s leader in e-commerce.
As a global brand, Amazon’s numbers are staggering: Between 2011 and 2021, the company’s global brand value soared — from 37.6 billion to 683.8 billion. That’s a 1,700% increase.
Amazon may be a behemoth, but it didn’t get there overnight — and it had a strategy. This strategy can be melded with your company’s unique philosophies, and it all starts with customer service.
Laser-Focused on Customers
An intense focus on customer service, satisfaction, and retention are key driving forces of Amazon’s rise to success and continued domination in the e-commerce industry. This laser focus helps to not only increase conversions, but it’s essential to building long-term loyalty.
Ways retailers can learn from Amazon include:
- Personalizing the shopping experience
- Pricing strategies that go beyond lowering prices
- Actively pursuing customer reviews
- Appealing to the customer’s fear of missing out
Shopping Experience Personalization
Whether shopping in-store or online, customers thrive on a personalized experience. Amazon gathers data from its customers via purchase and browsing habits and effectively uses it to provide targeted recommendations for shopping categories and products.
While data collection, interpretation, and implementation can be complex, they can’t be overlooked. Quick profile quizzes to streamline the shopping process and open the door for targeted recommendations for future sales are just one tactic. Concierge service and product education help enhance the personal shopping experience, as well.
Pricing Strategies: Beyond Sales Events
Amazon has a reputation for offering the lowest prices on many products and services. While low prices can be an effective sales strategy, long-term consumer loyalty and buying power go beyond a single sales event.
Pricing strategies certainly influence customer loyalty and work to increase sales. Amazon has learned to lower prices on the most viewed and/or best-selling items, while often raising the price on companion items in lesser-viewed categories. This can create the perception of lower prices across the site.
Post-purchase strategies are also important. Consider reminders to set up a repeat purchase of products bought regularly. Amazon offers a “Subscribe & Save” option where customers can set a regularly scheduled delivery and receive savings versus ordering the items as one-time buys.
Reviews Matter
From word of mouth to social media posts, reviews influence the retail dollar. Shoppers often spend more time reading reviews than product details. To get customers to leave reviews, it must be convenient.
Amazon does this with an easily accessible “write a product review” button on each order and by sending follow-up emails asking you to rate and review the product. Don’t want to write a sentence or two? No problem. Just click the stars.
Reviews sell products. Make it easy for customers to share their thoughts and convenient for shoppers to see those reviews so they can be used as part of the buying process.
Creating a Sense of Urgency
Fear of missing out is real. Amazon plays the urgency game well using its countdown timer. Placed an item in the cart but haven’t clicked through to purchase? Here comes the countdown timer. It urges the customer to purchase before a certain time and rewards this action by shipping the item the next day instead of two to three days.
End With Easy Checkout and Delivery Options
Shoppers dislike standing in long checkout lines at stores and equally dislike complicated, multipage online checkouts. Make checkout easy and fast via a mobile app. One-click buy systems such as those used with Amazon’s Kindle purchases are the ultimate in streamlined checkouts.
Delivery options also rank high in building customer loyalty. Amazon’s Prime subscription offers multiple benefits. One of the biggest is free delivery on many items. Providing free or discounted delivery as well as shipping options are other ways to increase customer satisfaction and retention.
While Amazon’s size eclipses the average retailer, there are still numerous lessons to be learned from the giant’s customer-centric strategies. Not all may be a fit for your business, but tailoring the ones that do can help with customer satisfaction and long-term loyalty.
Author Bio: Juan Jaramillo is Performance Marketing Director for Cordial, a cross-channel marketing and data platform. He has 13 years of experience in the industry and focuses on performance marketing, search engine optimization, and analytics.
