5 Steps to Help You Reconnect with Former Customers.
Where have your customers gone?
One of the biggest mistakes that companies make is not continually engaging with their customers. Customer retention is cheaper than customer acquisition. It costs five times more to attract a new customer than retain a current customer. Increasing your customer retention by only 5% can lead to a 25% - 95% increase in profit.
Try one or all of these five steps today to reengage with your former customers.
1) Clean up the company database
Make today the day you start to clean up the company database/CRM. Don’t wait for January, do it today. You’ll use this information for your customer satisfaction survey and ongoing communications.
Determine the categories that you would like to track. You can connect with people with even this small amount of information:
Title
Industry
Customer / prospect / suspect
Location
Contact owner
Add this information to the CRM or spreadsheet. And only upload clean data. Starting today, you have the tools to re-engage.
2) Create and implement a customer survey
The information you receive from a customer satisfaction survey can help drive your business for 2021 and beyond. Include your customers, prospects and accounts that you haven’t worked with recently. Determine the key information you are looking to get from these contacts. Ask specific questions that will help you understand why you may have lost their business.
And stay engaged after the survey. Provide the feedback to the list of people that participated. Let them know what enhancements you are making or what services your customers find most valuable. Create a partnership with your customers. And use the information from the survey as content for your on-going communications.
3) Company Communications
Add lost accounts to your company communication programs once you’ve confirmed that they are missing. Send “we’ve missed you” communications, with a call to action that drives them to a (personalized) webpage created specifically for the program on your website or call a rep to provide consulting for a project. Better yet tell them how you can support their requirements in 2021.
4) Sales Team Communication Support
Written communications are one of the hardest things for salespeople to begin. Provide your sales teams with email copy to help them reconnect with their customers. Keep it simple, direct and allow for the rep to personalize for their particular customer. Here’s an example:
Hi <Former Customer>,
I was thinking about your marketing program we worked on last year. Is it time to redeploy that project? I have a few ideas to streamline the time it took to setup the job and improve the results you achieved.
Are you available next week before noon for 15 minutes? You may find the enhancements we have valuable and effective for the program.
I’ll follow-up with you at the end of the week.
Sales rep name
5) Host an on-line event
With open houses and industry events not in our future it’s time for you to consider creating online experiences for your prospects and customers. While this may seem daunting, it is a program that you need to add to your marketing plan to remain top of mind with your customers and prospects.
Create an engaging program that promotes new offerings and demonstrate the results of programs you have built. Include your staff and the people that make it happen on a day to day basis. Please avoid the showroom press unless beautiful color projects are printed.
Retention is the new acquisition
You budget and resources are limited. Re-engage those customers that haven’t used your services. You may uncover a new service, offering and/or increased profits. Isn’t that a great way to start 2021?
See more suggestions for customer retention.
Not sure how to begin reengagement? Now is the time. Contact me, and let’s make it happen.