Not only can reconnecting with former customers give your sales a welcome boost when you need it, they can be instrumental in adding to your bottom line on a regular basis. Why? Because research shows that while customers who only shop with you once have a 27% chance of making a second purchase, someone who has purchased from your company multiple times has a 59% chance of returning.
If you can entice return customers back to your business, there’s a better than good chance they’ll become regular, repeat buyers. So, let’s take a look at how you can reestablish contact with previous customers and convert them into long-term clientele.
Even if your business doesn’t actively pursue customer loyalty with the help of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software, you can often find lost or inactive clients hidden away in archived emails or lying dormant in your data base or filing system.
In many cases, these will be single-transaction customers who made a purchase and vanished - but you may also stumble across repeat buyers you haven’t heard from in a while. Here’s a simple plan for reaching out and reconnecting with them.
Comb through your records and create a targeted contact list of customers who haven’t bought from you recently. Depending on your normal sales volume, that might mean separating out clients who’ve been inactive over the past month, or over the past year. Either way, the key is to compile as much information as you can about what, when, why, and how those customers purchased from you in the past.
Clients come and go for a variety of reasons, so it's up to you to figure out what those reasons are and defuse them. Some common explanations for why buyers disappear include:
Despite our best efforts, many first-time buyers will simply remain one-off clients. But it’s always worth pushing for that second sale because return customers are more than twice as likely to buy from your company a third time – and so on down the purchasing cycle.
Once you have an informed customer list to work from, it’s time to take a personalized approach to reestablishing contact. Whether you use direct mail postcards, reach out through email, or go old-school and call once-active clients, you’ll need to give them a good reason to come back. Extending a coupon, discounted offer, or private flash sale often yields the best results. Just make sure it’s relevant in terms of what you’ve learned about your customers’ buying habits.
Customers who feel valued by the companies they deal with typically spend up to three times as much as single-purchase clients do - and are happy to recommend these businesses to others. So, once you’ve successfully enticed former buyers to return and buy from you again, it’s essential that you give them every reason to stick around.
To achieve this kind of brand loyalty, you’ll need to work at putting customers first in every business interaction. Here are a few tips for promoting customer delight both during and after a purchase:
Consistent customer relations are critical for hanging on to return clients once you’ve reconnected with them. Not only does striving for excellence in this area promote repeat business, prompt and friendly customer service has been identified as one of the top reasons why customers will pay more to deal with a company they trust.