A Complete Guide To Winning Back Lost Customers

Every business loses customers; it’s inevitable. Customers find new places to shop, have tightened their personal budget, or have just forgotten that your company exists. It’s not necessarily a terrible sign if you lose a customer, or an ordering account lies dormant for months on end.

However, it is important to dedicate a little of your business time to trying to win these customers back. They should be treated like warm leads; they know your business, they like what you produce, and they may be able to be tempted back into making an order.

There are various ways that you can do this. Below are the ideas and strategies for winning back lost customers — why not read through and see which might be able to help your business?

 

Finding Your Lost Customers

First and foremost, you are going to have to find the customers that you have lost.

In some cases, you may already have their details on your email list. Many online store systems will send a “we missed you!” email if a customer has not made an order for awhile, so check you have this feature activated.

However, there is every chance that the customer is no longer receiving your emails; they may have been consigned to spam, or filtered out by the troublesome Gmail “promotions” tab, which has caused a huge number of problems for businesses.

So what are your other options, if you can’t send an email?

Try and utilize all the contact methods you have available. If you have postal addresses, then send mail shots. They may also still follow you on social media, so ensure this tool is involved in your efforts. You should still use email just in case, but it’s imperative you don’t just rely on email– you have to expand your horizons.

Now you know where you should be sending information, the question becomes: what should you be saying? Here are a few ideas…

#1 – Offering A Discount Code

Everyone loves a bargain, so this may be the single most effective way of encouraging a customer back to your store.

The offer should be available to returning customers only, and it needs to be a substantial offer. No customer is going to be persuaded back by a 5% deal; that almost feels like an insult. You should be offering at least 20%, and potentially more if you can balance the figures. You’re trying to tempt people; it’s very easy to overlook 5% or 10% off deals, but 20% is far more attention-grabbing.

 

#2 – Adding A New Product Line

If it has been awhile since you added a new product, then there’s always the chance that you lost the customer because they didn’t have anything else to buy. If they’d bought everything they wanted from your existing range, then they become a lost customer by default.

To bring customers back, adding a new product can help energize their thoughts of your company. It’s important you don’t rush this process; you want to develop something good, something that is genuinely going to make your customers want to return. Take your time going through a thorough design stage, use companies like WayKen Rapid for your prototype, and do your research. It may be tempting to rush through this process in a bid to capture those customers as soon as possible, but remember, they’re not going to come back for a bad product.

When you do get in touch to announce the launch of a new product, you can be sure that you have something genuinely tempting to offer. Rushing just isn’t worth it, so take your time with development, and then shout the existence of the new product from the rooftops when it’s ready to be launched.

 

#3 – Improve Your Customer Service

If a customer had a problem with an order in the past, then poor customer service could be the reason they have not returned to buy again. Customers, by and large, can accept that mistakes sometimes happen; what they can’t accept is when a company fails to adequately address the issue.

Include a mention in all of your communication that customer service has been greatly improved. This may help to tempt back customers for whom this was an issue before; of course, you also do need to take the relevant steps to actually improve your customer service too!

 

#4 – Offer Free Shipping

Shipping cost can often be the decider on whether or not a customer makes a purchase. Even if your delivery costs are reasonable, it can be off-putting for customers. They have to go through your site, comparing the prices, and then ensure they add delivery on.

To combat this, you could offer it for a limited time to returning customers. Customers love free shipping, so this should go down well. You may also want to investigate the possibility of switching to free shipping for all customers; there are a number of benefits to such a move, so it’s definitely an area you will want to investigate.

 

#5 – Ask Them Directly Why They Stopped Buying

On all of the communication you send to customers, you should include a request for feedback. This gives you an opportunity to learn exactly why customers stopped shopping with you, so you can rectify these areas in the future.

You will need to offer some form of incentive to complete feedback; few customers will do it without the promise of some kind of reward. Entry into a prize draw may suffice, but if you really want answers, then an increased discount code is by far the best option. While this may cost you money in the long run, the value you get from feedback can help you to earn more in the future– so this is definitely a wise investment to make.

 

Conclusion

If you try each of the above methods, you should be able to bring old customers back to your business– and see your turnover and profits increase as a result.

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About Dequiana Jackson

Dequiana Jackson, Founder of Inspired Marketing, Inc., helps overachieving women entrepreneurs conquer limiting beliefs and create marketing plans that grow their businesses. This includes one-on-one marketing plan development, digital product creation, web design and content marketing. Dequiana is the author of Know Your Business: How to Attract Ideal Clients & Sell More and runs the award-winning blog, Entrepreneur-Resources.net.

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