What is Buyer’s Remorse and How to Avoid it

Prove your value

When it comes to buying, your customers want to know you’re more interested in their needs than your monthly target.

This comes from building a relationship that doesn’t start and end with a singular transaction.

How do you manage that I hear you ask? Well, a customer relationship revolves around trust.

If they’re a prospect you’ve been chasing for a while, ensure you’re proving how you can help their pain points. This shows you’ve taken the time to understand their needs and are willing to provide a resolution.

If they’re more of an in and out customer, prove your value in the onboarding process. It’s not enough to take their custom and run. Engage with them, learn what it is they’re looking for and then make it work.

Either way, once you’ve given them your word, you need to keep it. This reduces the risk of post-purchase regret.

Be realistic

If you’re looking to keep your promises, make sure they’re obtainable.

Sure, fancy marketing tactics promising bells, whistles and a new ferrari will always work, but is that actually viable?

There’s no point getting customers through the door if you’re just going to let them down. It’ll only lead to them walking away and a whole lot of damage to your reputation.

So, from the get go, make sure you explain to your customers exactly what they can expect from you and your company.

It might be worth providing them with a document (or an email, basically anything in writing) showing the next steps. This could include relevant team members, invoicing instructions and a brief overview of what it is they signed up for.

It’s all about not avoiding the pitfalls of false hope. If your customer is assured their purchase is bound to benefit them, there’s a much lower chance they’ll wind up disappointed.

Remain accessible

No matter how hard you try, things don’t always go to plan.

That’s why it’s important to always be accessible to your customers. Panic can start when they can’t find what they’re looking for or things aren’t turning out how they hoped.

Picture this, you’ve handed over your card details and are dealing with a new service/ product never seen before. What do you do? Reach out to the person who sold it to you.

But what happens when you can’t find their details? Extreme panic mode. And most certainly the beginning of buyers remorse. If you’re not available for post-purchase support and training, your customers are going to feel duped.

So, reassure your customers that you’re always there for them by offering them a solid onboarding process. Not only will this help them get to grips with your product/ service (again, showing value) but also provide access to your contact details.

It’s also useful to share any relevant blogs or content you have to help them when you’re not around.

At the end of the day, being accessible doesn’t require a 24/7 help desk. It’s just a friendly face and a consistent voice in their time of need.

Don’t stop sharing

Buyers’ regret isn’t limited to new customers. If you’re too busy focusing on your newer conquests, your old reliables will rue the day they joined you too.

So keep on sharing the love, knowledge and content.

Everytime you release a new feature/ service, support document, or anything else that would add to their life, tell them.

Not only is this a handy sales tactic, but it’s also a good conversation starter. There’s no harm in reaching out to your existing customers to see how they’re getting on. Also, the more embedded you become in their lives, the harder it is for them to leave. Sneaky.

The same goes for feedback. Make diary notes to touch base with your customers every so often and ask the blunt questions. What’s working, and more importantly, what isn’t.

This will make your customers feel valued, like you’re genuinely interested in keeping them happy. Which of course you are! But you’re also interested in keeping their custom.

Once you’ve got some feedback on where and how to improve, you can put this into practice and use it in your marketing for the new customers. Everyone’s a winner!

Ultimately, if your customers stop singing your praises, it can really throw a spanner in your marketing works.

When you care about your business, it’s important everybody else does too. Not just for your sanity, but for your bottom line.

So don’t mess it up by focusing too heavy on sales and forgetting support, they both need each other. Yin and yang.

Once your customers understand you’re there for them past the checkout, you’ll soon eliminate the grey cloud of post-purchase worry.