London Optimisation Breakfast: Strategies for customer retention and revenue growth

1. Taking a wide and narrow view

Optimisation is about striking a balance between the big picture and getting into the details.

When Apadmi partnered with the Co-op to build its membership app, we had to balance scale (personalising offers for millions of members) with detail (optimising App Store screenshots to boost conversion rates).

For retailers particularly, there is a big need to focus on the fundamentals first before narrowing your view.

Panelist in our Optimisation Breakfast, Evie Mackie, who is Principal Product lead at Currys said: “Get the retail fundamentals right. Get your click and collect proposition on point. Get your delivery right. Get the customer experience seamless, and that will drive loyalty.

"You don't need a bells-and-whistles points scheme to get that stickiness. If customers land on site, or they go into a store and they enjoy that experience - that is going to drive frequency for you.” 

Looking at how changes can impact not just conversion rates, but also longer term value and engagement is important. A recent test at Currys added “recently viewed” recommendations to the homepage, not to necessarily drive immediate conversions, but to support customers in their buying journey. The approach prioritised helping customers find, choose, and be inspired by products, rather than simply pushing sales.

“The classic mindset when it comes to measurement in ecomm is always conversion,” explained Evie. “And actually, when you're trying to effect customer retention, a lot of what you need to do is coach the senior leadership team to be thinking about things like your customer lifetime value and engagement statistics, rather than necessarily just converting. Because actually what we're trying to get do is up our frequency.”

2. Test and measure as much as possible

Continuous testing is essential for success - and this doesn’t just mean testing different versions of your product, but also wider parts of your campaigns such as Marketing, ASO and gamification.

For one of Apadmi’s major retail clients, A/B testing of app store screenshots projected an additional 23,000 downloads.

Apadmi’s Senior Product Marketing Executive Jess Hill explained: “You can’t just build a great product and then leave it as is, expecting users to find you. There are millions of regular visitors to the App Stores - you’ve got to be continuously optimising and testing ways to engage both new and lapsed users.” 

“Are you updating and iterating your product page? Are you A/B split testing screenshots? There are lots of little things you can do to increase visibility and downloads of your app.” 

Meanwhile, Virgin Media O2 recently saw a surprising boost in broadband customer retention through testing gamification - over to Head of Product Themba Sweet.

He said: “We really wanted to test the efficacy of gamification in an unusual position where we were trying to retain broadband customers - it was actually so effective that we didn’t believe the data at first. We ran a similar test over Christmas, again on the billing page, and by adding the gamification element to unlock a cheaper offer, we saw brilliant results.”  

In terms of measuring impact, Currys discovered that inconsistent product images in shopping baskets were leading to abandoned carts. By testing and iterating to align images across the site, so customers were seeing the same thing in their basket as they had on the product page, they were able to create a more consistent customer experience and reduce drop-off.

3. Move at pace

Speed matters, and it's something Apadmi has been able to support the Asda team with, increasing its App Store conversion rate with Custom Product Pages by 46% in just a few months of working together, alongside further rapid improvements in engagement and downloads.

Similarly, Virgin Media O2 has have found that frequent releases and rapid iterations reduce fear around experimentation, enabling testing and implementing change to be delivered more efficiently.

“Optimisation to us now means really moving at pace. Our teams are agile; they are fast, and they’re autonomous. They don’t wait for a blessing, they go live quickly,” explained Themba.

“We test at pace, but we also release at pace. So each of the teams do about two releases a week… We take ideas to our customers swiftly, and we'll be brave enough to do that, and that's when we can actually start to see if that experiment plays out in the real world. So that experimentation mentality turns into our production mentality. That's been our approach, and it's been working.” 

4. Listen to your community, and take action

Optimisation is also about hearing and listening to customer voices. Organisations have to be geared up to action and implement user feedback to optimise.

Does this mean implementing every customer suggestion or request into your roadmap? No. But as Jess explained, what you need to identify is key customer trends, repeated issues, requests or feedback.

She said: “This is one of the reasons community management is so crucial for our clients; listening to your users and what they're saying is massively important. If you can identify multiple customers saying the same thing, that probably means that you need to listen up, and you need to loop that feedback into the product roadmap.”

“For our client Domino’s, we noticed through App Store community management that customers were regularly having an issue with food going to the wrong address. By raising this with our design and development teams, we were able to implement a simple but effective design change and split test the new journey - we were able to save the client millions in revenue. That's how important it can be to listen.” 

For Apadmi, client app reviews and ratings fuel research hypotheses that lead to user testing and product improvements, ensuring customer needs are reflected in every update.

For Virgin Media O2, customer feedback enriches its data and allows the business to look beyond its own expectations and onto what the customer wants.

“Optimisation means separating ourselves from our own opinions, which I find quite helpful,” shared Themba. “Once I got into optimisation, especially at Virgin Media O2, I started to spot that it doesn't matter what your opinion is or what your perspective is. What matters really is the customer and the customer data.” 

It’s not just listening to the wider community that is key - ensuring individual customer needs are heard and met appropriately is also important for driving customers to the right service or product you are offering. 

“At Currys, we leverage personalisation for our credit customers by looking at their history and their credit rating,” explained Evie. “We want to understand more about that customer and listen to what they really need and want. We can then provide them with better content, better services and suitable products.”

“When I was at John Lewis and Waitrose, the quickest way to get that customer feedback was to launch surveys to understand, 'do customers like this?' What that does is give quick feedback to the business on propositions - it allows you to get something instant. It’s one of the most beneficial things you can do before you step into full development.” 

5. Trust is key - but how can you optimise it?

Building trust with customers is critical for long-term engagement and loyalty. Without trust, even the most optimised experiences can fall flat. But how can brands improve trust in their digital products? 

Measuring customer trust is the first step - increasing trust is then something to focus and build upon.

Themba said: “We look at digital-first rate; do you trust our digital journey over calling a human? That’s a powerful one. For older audiences, are they going to trust going online to your website or app, over talking to a human being?” 

“You can also partner with external platforms such as TrustPilot to build up that trust element - this is something we’re really exploring."

Trust is also key when it comes to data exchange with customers, and using this data to optimise personalisation and engagement. But your proposition needs to be strong enough to create this trust in a exchange for data.

“Customers are still reluctant to willingly give their data to us," said Evie. "Especially when they don’t know what is being done with that information. You need to have a strong loyalty proposition to build that trust and allow for that data exchange.” “We did this really well at John Lewis. The app had a strong offering; the right amount of gamification, habit-building prompts, the right amount of stickiness and all on-brand.”

Final thoughts

Optimising digital products is a continuous process that requires a balance of strategy, agility, and customer-centricity. Leading brands are taking a wide and narrow view, focussing on both large-scale personalisation and fine-tuning small details to enhance user experience.

Testing and measuring as much as possible ensures that products evolve based on real data, not just assumptions. Moving at pace allows teams to experiment, iterate, and deploy improvements quickly, reducing fear around change. Listening to users, whether through direct feedback, app reviews, or community engagement, helps shape product roadmaps in more meaningful ways.

Finally, building trust through transparency, personalisation, seamless user journeys and a strong data exchange offering is key to driving engagement and long-term loyalty.

By embedding these principles into their digital strategies, brands such as Currys and Virgin Media O2 are creating products that are not only optimised but also truly valuable to their customers.

If you want to optimise your digital products but don't know where to start - our mobile experts are here to help.