How to Win Back Your Customers

By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President

The Scoop on Keeping Your Small Business Customers Happy and Engaged

Small business owners and savvy marketers know that in order for your promotions and sales efforts to be most effective, you should know as much as possible about your potential customer; what their habits are both online and off, their income, commute habits, communication preferences, etc. 

This all helps paint a picture of their needs, and helps you determine at what point your products or services could be of use to them. This type of personalized data on your customer is incredibly valuable, and one of the reasons why big data is such a rapidly growing market. ​

Yet for most small businesses, finding the right customer at the right time using snippets of demographic and other consumer behavior data can be time consuming and hit-or-miss. Even the best, most thoroughly researched marketing campaigns only convert a small percentage of their target audience. 

However, there is one market segment where customers tend to convert at a much higher rate: former customers. That may sound counterintuitive, but consider that you already know they liked your product or service at one time. You only need to figure out why they left and how you can win them back.

Is the effort to win back past customers worth it?

Check out these stats: 

• According to the Gartner Group, the majority of your future profits, approximately 80%, will come from just 20% of your existing customers.
• A Bain & Company study conducted in collaboration with Harvard Business School found that "increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%."
• Other studies have found that the probability of converting an existing customer is 60% to 70% while the probability of converting a new prospect is just 5% to 20%. 

That last stat is pretty compelling when you factor in the amount of effort and cost involved in targeting existing vs new customers. 

How to Win Back Customers and Keep Them

Ultimately there are a variety of strategies that a small business can employ to win back former customers. There are a number of things to consider when determining which win-back strategy will be most effective for your particular past customers. This helpful infographic by Fundera covers some of the best ways to win over past customers. 

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The text version of the infographic follows below. All infographic content provided by Fundera. 

Get the scoop on how to win back your customers' business:

1. Figure out why they left. 82% of customers leave due to poor service or product dissatisfaction. 

2. Find candidates open to win-back. Customers who leave because of prices are most likely to come back. 

3. Find the highest value candidates. An RFM analysis shows which customers made a large or frequent purchase. 

Win-Back Strategies for Small Business

Offer incentives. Send a discount, offer a service upgrade, or bundle additional services to give them an offer they can't refuse. Use it when  customer has been inactive. 

Launch a campaign. When you improve a major aspect of your product or service, let everyone know about it. Use it when you've received a lot of negative feedback about one aspect of your business. 

Remind them of your benefits. Send a quick reminder of what they're missing out on, or a new benefit they never got to try. Use it when your customer used to be an active user, but hasn't made a purchase in awhile.

Get personal. Address your customers or clients sincerely on an individual basis to prove our commitment to providing the best service possible. Use it when you've encountered an issue with a personal client or gotten a bad review online. 

How to Keep Them

Send regular engagement emails. Send a quick reminder of what they're missing out on, or a new benefit they never got to try.

Remain active on social channels. For 45% of consumers, social media is one of the first channels they go with questions or issues. 

Appreciate them. 65% (of consumers) think businesses should show their appreciation by offering discounts to loyal customers. 

Sources available at ​https://www.fundera.com/blog/customer-winback

By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President

​Julee Klein is the President of Julee Klein Marketing LLC, a full-service digital marketing agency based in Morgan Hill, California. JKM is focused on serving small business owners in the greater Silicon Valley area. You can get in touch with Julee on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @JKMktg

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