Customers or clients are the life blood of any business. Without them you don’t have a business and the damage a disatisfied customer can do through negative reviews can be fatal in the early days of trading.
Even large, established businesses, that might have disregarded the loss of a few disgruntaled customers in the past, can no longer afford to ignore them. Social media and review sites have altered the balance of power and in todays world of business, the customer really is always right.
So how do you win back those customers or clients who decide to take their business elsewhere?
Don’t lose the customer or client in the first place
This one’s a given but worth mentioning. If you’re just starting make sure your system of receiving calls and dealing with customers is professional and polite. Whatever process you set up, make sure its customer focused. If you employ others or outsource your customer service, monitor and review it.
Feedback, positive or negative, is precious. Don’t take it personally. It gives you insight in to how the customer perceives your business, service or product. If you receive negative feedback act on it immediately. Actions matter here, not words. Depending on the feedback, the customer will want to see you have taken their concerns seriously.
Communicate with your customers
Good customer service involves keeping your customer informed. If a customer has decided to go elsewhere for whatever product or service you provide, contact them to ask why. You could ask them for a review of their experience if they haven’t already provided feedback. You could offer a discount on their next purchase as a thank you or offer value-added services on their next purchase.
You would need to comply with the relevant regulations for communication in your country, such as GDPR, and communicate via email, phone/text or social media.
You could even send a request out to everyone for feedback via your website or your own social media account in return for a discount or freebie.
Act on the feedback
Once you’ve received feedback, use it to improve the business. You should soon see trends, such as a large percentage of feedback referring to price or long delays in delivery, etc. Address common concerns as soon as possible and communicate that back to the customer. Acting on customer concerns makes them feel heard and relevant rather than unimportant and ignored.
If the feedback reveals a specific complaint from individual customers, address these also, even if it’s just to apologise or to confirm that you will be reviewing training so whatever happened doesn’t reoccur.
A free gift or discount on future purchases should be enough to turn a negative review in to a good one. Or maybe just prevent the customer writing a bad review in the first place. The best case scenario would be that you win back customers, but that outcome will be down to how well you handle their specific complaint.
Stay in the news
Never neglect your advertising and PR. Customers move from one supplier to another for a variety of reasons. It may be just an introductory offer by a competitor that lost you the customer so the more visible you are the better.
If all else fails be creative. If you’re struggling to win back customers try something new and then make sure you write about it in a PR article for the press. It could be as simple as a different packaging design or a more personalised service.
Keep up with industry trends
Stay current. As your industry evolves so should you. If you cant supply what your customers want they will look elsewhere.
Use remarkable customer stories to promote your business
Positive feedback and testimonials are a powerful marketing tool. Communicating how you went above and beyond for your customer would not only be great for marketing, it might also persuade previous customers to give you another try.
And finally…
The best way to win back a customer is to maintain their trust. Complaint handling is just as important as the product or service you’re offering. If you can’t take care of a customer’s complaint properly they will be more likely to go elsewhere. Communicating with your former customers, getting feedback and using that feedback to improve your business is as important as communicating with your current customer base.
Shout about your successes via social media, PR articles, advertising and your website. Keep a high profile and keep pushing a positive message. While there isn’t one size fits all when it comes to winning back a lost customer making the effort to reach out will be your first step to getting them back.