Customer Retention Strategies to Use After You Have Lost a Valued Customer or Client!

If your organisation is focused on customer acquisition and not retention, you are missing out on a chance for regaining lost customers and attaining record sales. Loyal customers are easily the most profitable. Customers who are referred generate the best returns on marketing investment, too. A study by Marketing Metrics even shows that companies had a 20 to 40% chance of regaining lost customers, as against 5 to 20% chance of converting prospects to customers.

Customer retention strategies need to focus on winning back lost customers as opposed to just looking to acquire new clientele. It’s definitely more cost-effective and efficient to go after lost clients than build new prospects, and this is how you can accomplish it:

• Understand Why You Lost the Customer

Analysing customer behaviour is the key to understanding if they are likely to return to the fold. Research suggests customers who referred other customers, or had complaints resolved properly were generally the best option. Likewise, a customer who saw the price as too high were more likely to return than a customer defecting due to the poor customer experience. Customers that left because of price and poor service both are unlikely to return. So, finding out what led to losing the customer in the first place is an important customer retention strategy.

• Focus on Solving the Problem

If the customer has been lost because of mistakes made, one needs to find out how to solve the problem, resolve the concern or respond to the queries. Fixing the problem can restore your market reputation, as well. Tailoring offers and incentives should definitely be part of your customer retention strategies. Most companies looking to win back customers adopt a one-size-fits-all approach, which can be really problematic.

The same incentive may not work for all customers. Customers who left because of poor service or customer experience might be harder to persuade than those with price based issues, because in the case of the latter, a simple discount may work. But for customers who left because of the poor experience, it is essential to add value and offer upgrades on services or experiences. Tailor or customise offers and incentives to customers in question based on reasons cited.

• Choose a Strategy That Works

Customer retention methods to win back valued clients depends on cost considerations as well. The goal of winning back customers should be to improve business bottom lines. Lost customers are more valuable than cold prospects. Studies also show there’s a 60-70% chance of successfully selling to existing customers. Taking on strategies that offer a great experience serve to create a better fit for customers.

• Educate and Empower Your Customers

Educating and empowering customers can be a way to bring them back to your store and believe in your brand narrative again. Creating a marketing list for special prospects and past customers is important. Educate and empower customers so they choose your brand over alternatives. Focus on delivering on your brand’s promise and nurturing your customer’s experience.

There’s not a single business which has not lost customers. But it is definitely the successful brands that excel at customer retention strategies to win lost customers back. Pulling up customer profiles and using available information to provide a way to reconnect with customers is also effective. Winning customer service teams know how to fix client concerns. Communicating effectively remains at the core of effective retention and as a business looking to succeed, you must focus on gaining back lost customers because that is what a winning brand does.