Wake Up Sleeping Customers with Customer Reactivation Strategies
During the season of hibernation, the bear population seemingly drops off the face of the earth. The solution to seeing the missing bears is not to try to manufacture more bears. The easiest way to see more bears is just to wake them up (although approaching bears at any time is incredibly dangerous!).
Similarly, you need to wake up your clients (and this is much, much safer). While you may feel like you have run plumb out of customers, you could try to hunt down new ones, or you could implement some customer reactivation strategies that will wake up dormant ones!
Rise & Shine with Customer Reactivation Strategies
The easiest way to grow your business and improve your bottom line isn’t always to spend more money on advertising to attract new customers. Waiting for new customers making new purchases to be your saving grace is one of the least effective ways to increase your sales or revenue. New customer acquisition requires costly expenditures, increased workload, and generally has lower returns on the investments. Plus, if you aren’t prepared to retain them long-term, you’re entering into a never-ending cycle of you desperately seeking new clients to keep your business open.
Instead, here are some customer reactivation strategies that your call center can use to help grow your business, increase profits and cultivate improved, ongoing relationships with your former customers:
1. Discover the “Why”
Customers may go into “hibernation” for any number of reasons. Some may be related to your company (bad experience), some may be related to the market (new competition), or some may be purely personal (financial or life changes). Spend time digging into the data to discover potential reasons why the bulk of your former customers made a mass exodus. You may find that a simple correction to a policy, script, price-point or personnel could be enough to re-engage them.
2. Remind Them That You Exist
You may find that some of your previous customers simply forgot that you were open and available for serving their needs. Often, a simple phone call for a non-sales reason (updating information, offering to update their email preferences, etc.) can trigger a remembrance of their previous satisfaction with your products or service and motivate a visit to your website and a reorder then and there! According to a marketing metrics study, the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60–70% while the probability of selling to a new customer is only 5–20%.
3. Draw Them Back In
Consider incentive options that may be enough to serve as customer reactivation strategies. For example, offer a special price, an upgrade of service, or a bonus offer. Use a power dialer to work your way through your former customers’ list, offer the incentive, and then update their dispositions. Mark for follow-ups or move them to the next level of the sales funnel as appropriate.
4. Treat Them Well
Once you have found the right blend of customer reactivation strategies for your business, be sure to work to maintain the relationship. Reactivated customers that continue to be treated well have the potential to become your most loyal and most profitable! Even if it takes them a little time to increase, in the end, they are better than a fully lapsed customer.
5. Discover the Value of Returning Customers
A study by Bain & Company, a management consultancy firm, found that customer attrition rates reach as high as 50% if customer databases remain dormant over a five year stretch of time. Depending on the size of your company, this could result in millions of lost customers and an unbelievable amount of money lost!