Yesterday I placed a second order from a Shopify store.
After the order went through and I got my confirmation email, they sent me another email.
Subject: Wow, Thanks Again.
WE LIKE YOU, TOO
You're into us, and it shows. Your support means a lot and we can't thank you enough. If you have any feedback, we're here to listen.
That content came with a cute gif, a way to contact their customer service, and three customer service-y links (e.g. about warranty, where the products are made, product quality control).
This was an ultra simple email too. Nothing too fancy (the gif was even a line sketch). No complex copywriting. Nothing to hard to create. It could have even been just plain text and had the same impact.
As a customer, it clearly put me into the "I'm a special customer because I came back" crowd. That's the special feeling you should strive for. That's how customer retention works.
Every Shopify store could do something like this in a week. Larger stores could automate it. Smaller stores just need to watch their orders and send one-off emails as 2nd orders come in (especially powerful if it comes from the owner/CEO).
You won't be able to easily measure the impact of it for awhile (you'll have to wait for the 3rd order for that) but I'd expect it'd have long-term impacts.
If you want to know how your 2nd order customers are behaving, Repeat Customer Insights comes with a report that highlights how you're performing at the stage. It's a critical stage that sets up your retention for the future
Eric Davis
Market to your customer's timing
Figure out how long customers wait in-between purchases and you have a key component for your marketing timing. This is the basis of the Average Latency metric and Order Sequence Report in Repeat Customer Insights.