Most brands spend heavily to get customers to buy. Fewer invest in what happens next — and that gap is where loyalty is won or lost.
"That's where it's created, earned and maintained," said Nick Webert, executive director of customer care at Samsung Electronics America.
Businesses often reduce the post-purchase period to ensuring an order arrives, according to Grant Deken, head of product at Klaviyo Service. But it extends well beyond delivery — into how a brand shows up when things go well, and how it responds when they don't.
Brands that treat post-purchase as an afterthought are leaving money on the table, while those that proactively shape the experience build brand affinity, experts say.
Samsung's care team discovered that its most effective loyalty tool wasn't a product feature or a new technology — it was keeping promises. Samsung made service appointments trackable so customers could see when a technician would arrive and when parts were on the way. In surveys, customers consistently pointed to that visibility — not product innovation — as a reason they came back.
"No cost to that, just doing what you said seems to be the answer," Webert said.
Samsung has moved toward diagnosing appliance issues remotely using connected devices. After monitoring about 5,000 refrigerators last year, the company found many problems, such as a mistakenly switched-off ice maker, didn't require a technician visit at all. The effort pushed Samsung's first-time fix rate from roughly 70% to 85% and its diagnostic accuracy to 97%, Webert said.
The shift is generational, Webert said, noting that service has operated on the same reactive model for decades, where something breaks, the customer calls, and a technician shows up.
"My father and his father serviced the same way it happens today," he said. "We are engaging at Samsung, changing this multiple-generation cycle of break-fix to proactive service."
The care team was the natural owner for the post-purchase experience because it has the technician network, carrier relationships and support infrastructure to actually resolve problems, Webert said.
"Marketing is going to focus on selling things," Webert said. "They're not going to have a deep relationship with a technician that you might need today."
Rethinking returns
The post-purchase relationship is fragile. A smooth purchase transaction can be undermined by a difficult return or a lost package, said Eric Kobe, CEO of Route, a post-purchase experience solution provider.
"Any sort of friction or frustration in tracking or returns or delivery can kind of undo a lot of that goodwill," Kobe said.
A recent Route study found 97% of consumers said a positive return experience makes them more likely to buy from that retailer again.
But returns cost businesses money in shipping and restocking, and absorbing return costs is not sustainable for most sellers, Kobe said. He pointed to Amazon Prime as a reference point: The membership has reshaped customers' expectations around free shipping and returns, but members pay about $140 a year. Most brands cannot replicate that experience without a similar funding mechanism.
So, rather than applying flat return fees, Kobe said companies should consider tying return benefits to loyalty program tiers, making the policy transparent and positioning it as a reward rather than a penalty.
Converting returns into exchanges is another way to protect revenue — and give customers what they want. When intimates brand Honeylove restructured its returns process to surface sizing guidance within the exchange steps, the company shifted more than $2 million from refunds to exchanges, Kobe said.
Deken described a similar, proactive approach among Klaviyo's merchant customers. One high-end dress brand was using AI to help shoppers find the right size before they ordered, reducing the number of customers who bought multiple sizes and returned what didn't fit.
"I think there's a combination of strategies that brands can take to go at this problem without just the band-aid fix of trying to pass the cost onto the consumer," Deken said.
Post-purchase interactions also produce customer data that most brands aren't using, Deken said. When a shopper browses return policy questions or engages with a support agent, that signal can shape a more specific follow-up — addressing a concern about fit, for example, rather than sending a generic reminder.
But Webert's advice was simple. Own the process end to end, invest in prevention over reaction, and follow through on what you promise.
"Companies need to stop thinking about reaction," he said. "They need to start thinking about prevention.”
