insights! #59: D2C study: boosting customer loyalty with excellent customer service

Great to have you back for the last thesis we asked about in the D2C study, which reads "With good advice and follow-up service, manufacturers can increase their customers' purchase frequency." That naturally applies to retailers too.

We asked our consumers this, particularly with regard to manufacturers. And what was interesting was that within the purchasing process, respondents said that 35% place mega, mega high value on this service. And yes, these product sales or repeat purchases would increase by almost 50% if the service is really good. Small spoiler, it apparently isn't always really good. So as a clear recommendation for action, you need to offer more services for the products you have, and high-quality services at that, if you're also active in an environment where you offer high-quality products. There's a big discrepancy there. Build that into your D2C approach. Good customer service is also decisive for buyers before the purchase, but also after the purchase, perhaps to buy another product. Because that's where I build trust in the brand.

And this trust in the brand is of course essential. And the study backed that up too. It says 51% of D2C non-buyers. Customer service needs to improve, because it wasn't good. Half of consumers said, I bought from the manufacturer, I had customer service and it was bad. That's simply not acceptable. So it's totally clear that in these cases the D2C strategy is probably not as fruitful as where that isn't the case. And so it's not just about digital capability and so on, but an attitude towards services for the customer, specifically for the end customer. That's different from the B2B environment or within B2B. It's also more effort. Sometimes you also have to let things go, and that can hurt too. We all know the reports and personally I don't think it's good at all that Amazon scraps loads of products, because they say, right, returns come in, we pack them away, scrap them, and to the seller we say, the return can't be resold. That's not sustainable at all. But on the other hand, this mindset, being very accommodating towards the end customer, is something we expect too. Now of course we have a really big balancing act, but that's exactly what a strategy is for, to think about how I position myself here regarding sustainability versus goodwill.

The third point is, these services, if they're really good, if these experiences are good, then purchase frequency is much higher. Because what happens in that process, when I've said I was satisfied with Stihl? I go straight to the website. I don't need SEO, I don't need ads, I know what Stihl stands for. And then, when I have the chainsaw, I might simply also buy the shredder directly from Stihl and not look anywhere else at all. And that's what we want, together with you as manufacturers and also as retailers, to win over customers with genuine positioning. And not attachment, but customer loyalty, because they want to, because they're delighted and enthusiastic. And that's the game we all know from somewhere. And I once, I've installed countless Yves switches and Yves thermostats for smart home. One broke, I contacted Yves, they said they couldn't do anything. Off to the retailer. Retailer said, yes, send it in. After four weeks I got a response. Yes, we've now forwarded it to Yves. So what? Don't need that. Sort it out directly and generously. They have plenty of that there. Am I buying again now? I'll just wait and see. Personal experience may vary for everyone, but we're also happy to advise you, Tink, to get a bit better in that area too.

We have three further pieces of information.

Point 1, of course, the study. After providing your name, e-mail address and phone number. And yes, we'll call you too and look forward to a brief chat. Even if you're not interested or not our ideal customer, you'll receive all the data from this study that will then help you.

Point 2, the core of this study is customer experience. That means we've developed a maturity model showing where you stand with your customer experience. You get that by answering seven questions, plus recommended actions for your situation.

Point 3 as a starter package with the ECC Next, the corresponding consulting arm of the Institute for Retail Research, and our specialists from strategic consulting, a starter offer to move forward on the topic quickly and efficiently without any waffle.