Fred Reichheld, a Bain Fellow and leading expert on customer loyalty, famously found that increasing customer retention rates by a mere 5% can boost profits by up to 95%.

That insight is more relevant than ever as economic uncertainty rises and consumer sentiment declines. In light of those trends, customer retention has never been more critical (or more elusive).

In last year’s Consumer Spend Report, Upside coined the term “uncommitted customer” —  a rapidly growing group that makes up nearly 80% of retail customers. This follow-up to that report looks more deeply at how uncommitted customers behave and what it takes to retain them.

To develop the exclusive insights in this report, Upside conducted the following research: 

• We analyzed the transactions of more than 7 million retail customers over three years.
• We surveyed 6,527 retailers from the general population to gauge their economic sentiment and business confidence.
• We surveyed 3,738 consumers from the general population to better understand how they use online tools to make purchasing decisions and engage with brands.   

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Get your copy of our new report, Winning the Uncommitted Customer

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And as it stands today, without loyalty or a cash-back offer, more than 40% of your customers in a given month won’t return in the next year. Overcoming that hurdle requires building habits with your customers, starting right after that first transaction. It’s a challenge, but it’s achievable — and it’s essential: 

If retailers earned just one more visit per month from uncommitted customers, it could represent a revenue bump between 84% and 208%, depending on the industry.

Incentives are an effective way to improve customer retention. Interventions like loyalty programming and Upside’s personalized offers influence uncommitted customers to choose your business more often. And in fact, they’re most effective when paired together. 

When customers transact in a given month with both loyalty and Upside, over 90% of them come back the next month — eliminating the sharp month-one retention cliff and delivering a retention boost even greater than the one outlined by Reichheld.  

Winning uncommitted customers is not a nice-to-have — it’s a business necessity for all retailers. This report helps you to understand them better so you can win them repeatedly and grow your business.

After reading this report, you’ll know:

• Who the uncommitted customer is
• Where the uncommitted customer sits in your business
• How uncommitted customers behave
• How to win an uncommitted customer

Click here to get your copy.