When a customer breaks up with you, it’s the worst. One minute they’re happy, repeat customers and then they disappear. But, you have the power to do something about it.
You can use re-engagement to bring them back and often get them spending and visiting more frequently.
Bringing customers back is worth your time. Research shows the probability of selling to existing customers is 60-70% while selling to new customers is just 5-20%.
Ready to re-engage your customers? Here are three ways to win them back:
1. Offer a tailored reward
When customers stray, give them the motivation to come back.
First of all, use your data. If you’re using a customer engagement platform like Thanx, you can get robust data about your customers including visit frequency, spend and even lifetime value. You can even see customers that are at risk that haven’t visited in a while. This enables you to hyper-target this segment of your customer base with a relevant offer to get them back.
Personalized offers always fare better. Research shows when you create push notifications based on a customer’s behavior and profile, you see a 30% higher click rate compared to sending the same, generic push notification to everyone, according to research from Localytics.
With Thanx, we do the heavy lifting. If you enable the Winback feature, we’ll automatically detect lost customers and send them an incentive that’s relevant to their purchasing habits.
Remember, there are more incentives to extend beyond discounts. You could offer a behind-the-scenes experience, a free upgrade or a free gift with purchase.
2. Gather feedback and solve problems
Customers leave for a reason. Some reasons are within your control and others aren’t. For instance, if a customer moves away and no longer shops at your store, there isn’t much you can do about that. However, if a customer leaves because of poor service, you can certainly take steps to resolve the issue.
Research shows subpar customer service is the number one reason customers leave. Take a look at the chart below that shows common reasons for customer churn. Sixty-eight percent of customers leave because of poor treatment.
The rest of the reasons, like being dissatisfied with a product or moving away, are minuscule in comparison to the number of customers who abandon a company over service.
To win back customers, you have to identify the reason they left. Customers don’t like complaining. Ninety-six percent of unhappy customers won’t complain when they’re dissatisfied, so you can’t expect customers to notify you of problems. You’ll have to investigate yourself.
If you’re using a customer engagement platform like Thanx, you can collect feedback directly from customers before they take to the interwebs and Yelp to complain.
Responding to customer feedback is powerful. Our research shows it can increase revenue by 22 percent. When you respond to feedback it allows you to learn about, address, and resolve issues before they get bigger and have a negative impact on your business.
Take a look at how you might see feedback in Thanx:
You can see who said it, what they said and the big deal is you can see data about the customer including how often they visit, how much they spend, and other feedback or NPs scores they might have given your business. You can see how powerful this is to determine how you will address their feedback. If the customer is a VIP who previously gave your location a 10 and is now giving you a 2, you should probably be all over that with a personal response and offer to come back so you can make things right.
That’s the difference in having a data-driven customer engagement platform as your partner. You get robust data you can take action on to reward the right customers at the right time with the right offer. This ensures you generate incremental revenue while keeping your customer base happy and satisfied. A win-win.
3. Update lost customers about new products or services
When a customer taps the buying brakes, he or she won’t know about cool new products that you carry or services that you’ve added.
For instance, maybe your bakery just added the latest hybrid donut/muffin/ croissant or maybe your car wash is now offering a laser wash that removes stubborn dirt. If it’s new, tell lost customers about it.
Start by creating a message that’s specific to this group. You might say something like, “Come back and try our newest addition: The Doumufssant.”
The message targets lost customers and mentions a new product or service. This kind of message has the ability to bring lost customers back.
You can also turn to email and send a message that showcases new products or features.
The idea behind this type of campaign is to not only remind customers of your business but to get them excited about something new – and that excitement hopefully translates into a sale.
Wrap up
Now you have three actionable ways to re-engage customers and bring them back. Thanx has won back 49% of lost customers for our merchants.
See how Thanx can help grow your business. Request a demo today.
