Is product data the secret to churn reduction?

It’s one thing to win new customers, but how do you stand the best chance of keeping them as customers?

In the face of rising customer acquisition costs and customer expectations, businesses are continuously looking for ways to be proactive when it comes to the subject of customer retention.

Could it be that the answer was there all along, though?

An aspect which is often overlooked in the fight against customer churn is product data. How you manage, update, enhance, and use it can go a long way towards strengthening levels of customer retention.

So, why exactly can product data help reduce customer churn? And why is a product information management (PIM) system an essential piece of the puzzle?

Let’s get into all the details now.

Why does customer churn happen?

Put simply, customer churn occurs when your customers have a poor experience with your brand.

It could be that some product information they’ve seen is incomplete, misleading, or confusing. They may have received an item from you already, but are disappointed or frustrated that it doesn’t meet their expectations based on the product listing they saw.

Whatever the scenario, this damages the trust they once had in your business, and it means that they will likely now venture elsewhere to make a purchase.

How can using PIM drive customer retention?

Customers expect seamless, personalized experiences with brands, and across every touchpoint, from researching a product to receiving post-purchase customer support.

It means that the quality of your product data plays a huge role in ensuring those expectations are met. This is where the PIM approach and utilization of a PIM system come into play.

A robust PIM solution ensures that product information isn’t just accurate and relevant; it’s also as enriched and as useful as possible for browsing customers. In turn, this enables your business’s product data to become a powerful asset that can be leveraged to:

• Reduce customer churn rates
• Increase customer satisfaction levels
• Lower the volume of customer returns
• Reduce the workload of your customer support team
• Build greater brand loyalty
• Strengthen levels of consumer trust

And when your product data is centralized in a PIM platform, allowing it to be kept accurate, enriched, and distributed more easily, it can positively impact customer satisfaction levels in the following ways:

• When product data is presented consistently across multiple channels (web, mobile, apps, online marketplaces), it reduces friction and instills confidence in the customer. This helps foster a good relationship between them and your brand.
• When your brand gets its product data management right, it reduces the likelihood of customers feeling misled or disappointed. In turn, this can lead to a reduced volume of customer returns because your customers’ expectations are fully met when they receive their purchase.
• Product content can get to market more quickly when product data is managed and updated more efficiently. It also means that customer demand can be met in real time, leading to a better shopping experience for consumers.

What’s more, you can use a leading PIM system to track and analyse how customers respond to your product content before leveraging these insights to provide them with more personalized product recommendations. As well as demonstrating to customers that you understand their needs and preferences, it also enhances their overall experience with your brand.

Here’s a real-life example of how a PIM solution can help drive better levels of customer retention through better product information management.

Søstrene Grene

Danish lifestyle brand Søstrene Grene is known for its calming, tactile in-store shopping experience. It wanted to replicate this for its e-commerce presence (where around 4,000+ products are listed at any one time) to create a superior customer experience for its shoppers.

When the business adopted Inriver as its PIM solution, it was soon able to create a single source of truth for all of its product data.

This enabled Søstrene Grene to:

• Ensure product data consistency and appropriate localization across six different online shops and for stores based in 16 countries.
• Enhance its product information content with storytelling and sensory elements — but also relevant compliance and certification data, which was extremely difficult before Inriver PIM.
• Save its staff time and manual effort because the process of making updates to products was now streamlined.

“We keep getting wiser about what information customers want. Our PIM allows us to accommodate those changing needs [like assembly instructions] quickly.”
— Mia Nygaard Nikolajsen, Digital Product Manager

Read the full customer success story.

Use Inriver PIM to turn your product data into a customer retention asset

Customers who shop with your brand are far more likely to remain loyal if your business can provide them with meaningful, frictionless shopping experiences.
The key to being able to deliver this lies not just in the quality of your product data, but in how you wield that product data.
Global e-commerce brands like PANDORA, FatFace, Cartier, and New Balance already use Inriver as their chosen PIM solution. It’s not just a centralized place to organize, update, and manage product data; Inriver PIM allows brands to harness their product data and use it as a powerful tool to reduce customer churn, increase customer satisfaction levels, and build long-term brand loyalty.