Every business has lost customers to competitors or disinterest. In fact, a 2013 study has shown that small businesses lose up to 40 percent of customers each year. And while you may think that there are more fish in the business sea, statistics show otherwise. Because while wooing new fish into your revenue nets, you’re actually going to spend 7x the amount of money trying to gain new customers than trying to keep your existing ones.
In an employee-employer situation it’s best to take care of your employees now rather than risk losing them and spending more money and using up time and resources to hire new ones. It is the same thing with your customers. You are better off focusing on keeping the ones you have instead of just focusing on gaining new customers.
But how do you reel back those lost customers?
1. Recognize That You Have, Indeed, Lost Customers
Lost customers are those that used to buy regularly from your site but have not upgraded to your new version or maintained their subscription. Prioritize these customers in your marketing efforts. The next six steps will show the best ways to do that.
2. Find Out Why These Customers Left
Have these customers not maintained their loyalty because of bad service? Were the products too expensive for them? Were they not able to find what they were looking for in your store? Did other stores offer same products you have but at a lower cost? No matter what their answers are, dig deeper into why customers left so that even if you don’t get them back, you have information you can use to prevent another customer from leaving, too.
Gather this kind of information via the customer’s shopping history, customer service call/complaint history, or simply send them the occasional survey email.
3. Make Adjustments on Your Offer
Pull up your lost customer profiles and use the available information to provide a more profitable and engaging offer for your customers. If you’re offering products, try researching comparison shopping websites such as Become.com to gain an industry view of which products are being sold at a lesser price and why, and try to compare your findings to your product.
4. Send a Friendly Email With the Adjusted Offer
Email marketing is a cost-effective way to re-connect with customers. Send an email that is designed beautifully with an offer they can’t resist. Make the content sound genuine and sincere while offering a time-sensitive incentive. And remember, because most customers get bombarded with tons of emails daily, make sure your subject line is catchy enough for them to click – but not so stuffed with keywords that it goes straight to your customer’s junk folder.
5. Take Responsibility
It may not really be your fault, but a winning customer service team knows how to take responsibility for customer losses and understands that fixing your customer’s problems and concerns is top priority in winning back that customer. Providing great customer experiences requires intense customer service training, so make sure all your employees are well-trained in basic customer service skills and the ins and outs of your product, and how customers pay for it.
6. Remind Them of the Benefits That Your Company Offers
Depending on your industry, take to social media and build up your brand profiles with human interest stories and insert a couple attention-grabbing ads and special offers. Promote your page, look into awarding customers of the month, and provide special discounts to long-term and returning customers.
7. Communicate
Now that you have their attention, recreate that customer relationship with excellent customer service communication. Studies show that 40 percent of online customers expect help within five minutes and 31 percent expect it immediately. Be sure that you’re there for your customer at all times; because that five minute window can close instantly if they stumble over another site with an even slightly lower offer while waiting for you to pick up the phone.
Keystone
Developing customer relationships with a winning customer service strategy guarantees to gain and maintain loyal customers over time. Remember, your customers are not asking for everything – they only want to feel that your business still cares about them, respects them and their buying decisions, and that you’re willing to do whatever you need to do to get them back.
This guest post was written by Lisa Campbell who is a writer for Become.com, a provider of comparison shopping technology for online shoppers. She’s an ecommerce enthusiast and loves to write online shopping topics.
