Customer retention strategies for supermarkets

5 strategies for supermarkets to retain customers for better ROI

For any retail store, acquiring new customers is essential. But you cannot ignore the existing customers. You have already spent money on acquiring them; retaining them would increase your sales significantly.

Having loyal customers for supermarkets and grocery stores generates recurring revenues, leading to a greater ROI. But you must keep them satisfied and engage with them often to retain them. You can incorporate the following key strategies for customer retention:

Incorporate loyalty programs

Anything that makes your customers feel special leads to loyalty. That is why you must create in-store loyalty programs to incentivize them. You can plan programs, such as:

• Earn points on every purchase. Use the collected points to get discounts on products.
• When you introduce a new brand in your store, give them samples for trial and ask for feedback.
• Reward them with points on every feedback or mention on social media by your customers.
• Send them emails on your membership benefits to remind them of loyalty perks.
When customers get such special, unique treatment, they return to your store often.

It has a single central database

Earlier, companies stored data in Excel sheets or physical papers. It increased your workload when required to gather and reconcile data across different business functions. Collecting data from different sources took more time with increased possibilities of errors.

With the ERP software, things are more manageable. A single, central database exists to store data from all departments and business functions. Thus, you are not required to make new sheets for different departments; just take the updated data from the database to process them further. It helps every team to work on updated, real-time, and accurate data.

Create community experiences

If customers get experiences they cannot find in other grocery stores, they will prefer you over others. You must create such unique experiences for them to retain them. When they get invited to such events, they feel a part of the inner circle and hence, shop often from your store.

Some of such community experiences include:
• You can organize festival celebrations in your store with a theme party, music, some free food samples, etc.
• You can also organize a local community cooking competition to attract them to your store and participate in such events.
• You can organize music or dance shows to encourage and support local artists and invite your customers.

Reward them for referrals

Word-of-mouth publicity is one of the best strategies to market your company. But it happens only if your customers are satisfied with you. You can please your customers with good products and services.

But another way is to reward them for every referral they make to others. You can reward them with points, discounts, product offers, gift vouchers, or social mentions.

Thus, with their referral, you gain new customers. In exchange, they get rewards, which makes them happy and more loyal to you.

Add convenience to their shopping experience

What do customers need the most when they enter a supermarket? The ease to shopping. To find items quickly. To get fresh items.

You can ensure these by adding convenience to your store design and display in the following ways:
• You can keep sales executives in different sections to help them with queries or doubts.
• You can keep related products in the same or neighboring displays to enable ease in finding things.
• You must clean the floor and make it smooth for the effortless movement of the basket.
• You must keep bright signs, big labels, and enough lights to point customers to every corner of the store.
• Give a touch of creativity to your product display to spark curiosity and interest in customers.

Engage with your customers

You have customer data – their email ids, numbers, and social media handles. You must engage with them through these channels. You can send them emails on new promotions, launches, and offers. You can even wish them on festivals, birthdays, anniversaries, and other important events. The best option is to ask them which channel they prefer and keep communicating so that they remember you.

These strategies help you retain customers. You can use your POS software to help you with these strategies. Websys’ POS software helps you create loyalty programs, send automated emails, manage displays, and track referrals and rewards. You can improve customer experience with the Websys ERP software.