HOW TO WIN BACK CUSTOMERS

Manilka Ediriweera explains the value of developing a ‘win back strategy’

Customer retention plays a crucial role in the success of a business, irrespective of the industry it ope­rates in. However, customer retention is no easy task – because some customers may decide to stop doing busi­ness with you for multiple reasons. This leads businesses to focus on acquiring new customers.

While acquiring new customers is a must for any business, organisations shouldn’t focus entirely on that. Studies have revealed that it can cost five times as much to acquire a new customer than it does to retain one. So it’s essential to pay equal attention to retaining customers and winning back those lost along the way.

One may ask whether it’s worth trying to win back customers who were lost along the way. To answer this, let’s consider a customer that your business has lost.

Compared to a new customer, the old client is bound to have prior experience with your business. And if the product or service your enterprise offers is satisfactory, there’s a high probability that there will be a greater degree of trust in your business and the product or service you provide.

Nowadays, detaching oneself from a product or service is as quick as engaging with it. It’s as simple to sign up for a subscription as it is to unsubscribe. In such a context, implementing strategies to win back lost cus­tomers brings with it plenty of advantages.

It will save the business money, help create a loyal customer base, increase organisational profits and reduce the churn rate.

The churn rate refers to the percentage of customers you lose or who stop engaging with your business after a certain period of time. If a business has a high churn rate, profit margins may be low. Therefore, enterprises must ensure that the churn rate is kept low to ensure success.

It is beneficial to establish a solid strategy to win back lost customers. Because let’s be honest, prospecting and acquiring new customers isn’t an easy task. As mentioned above, it is costly, challenging and time-consuming. That’s why a ‘customer win back stra­tegy’ should be employed by businesses to regain churned customers and keep the churn rate as low as possible.

A win back strategy is a planned and targeted marketing tool, which businesses can use to regain churned customers and retain them – and in turn lower the churn rate. Such a strategy helps consider lost customers as clients even though they walk away from your business.

One of the first steps would be to identify why the customer left and ask for feedback. Organisa­tions can do this through an exit survey sent to these people when they’re leaving the business or aren’t engaging with it as expected.

Through this process, there’s a greater possibility of getting to the heart of the issue since customers generally leave be­cause they’re unhappy with cer­tain aspects of an organisation.

After getting to the bottom of the issue, the next step would be to address and acknowledge the problem, and take necessary action to make their return worthwhile. This is where the power of content marketing, which is a powerhouse, can be harnessed by businesses.

When strategised and executed efficiently, content marketing has been remarkably successful. It’s a critical growth approach that helps improve audience engagement, drive sales, build trust and develop relationships, enhance conversions and generate leads.

However, creating content for the sake of it isn’t the way to go because it must always be valuable to your audience.

Once the reason for losing customers has been identified therefore, companies can make content marketing a vital part of their win back strategy. High quality content will entice customers, create positive experiences, make them loyal to the brand and drive more sales.

For this purpose, enterprises can take to social media. Your business can gain traction on social media and improve the overall customer experience through trendy content. In addi­tion to that, it’s also essential to say ‘yes’ to personalisation because it will make your cus­tomers feel like they matter and their voice is heard.

Personalised content and experiences can work wonders in getting lost customers to return. And for this, organisa­tions can make use of customer data that’s been collected earlier to engage with their clients.

If quality and compelling content are produced, and distributed efficiently among the target audience, the win back strategy implemented by the company will be a resounding success and impact the business in a number of positive ways.

So instead of focussing solely on customer acquisition, businesses should remember the importance of customer reen­gagement and concentrate on winning back lost customers through content marketing.