The key to your business growth may not come from adding new customers but rather from customers that are leaving you. Companies put a great deal of time, money, and resources into getting new customers. The more customers, the more growth.
Think about how much of your company’s budget is dedicated to sales and marketing with inside and outside sales reps, advertising and social media campaigns. Quotas and goals established to attract and capture new customers to build the business. But how many companies pay attention to the customers that are lost or inactive? Are you leaking customers and losing revenue and profit as a result?
Let’s talk about three steps to win-back your lost or inactive customers…
- Need to know who…
If you’re losing just as many customers as you are bringing in each year, you’re going to be challenged to grow your business. Knowing who has stopped buying from you altogether and who’s sales have continued to drop over time is the first step to stop the leaking. Determine who falls into what category and look at the data for patterns such as what division or region are they in, what product or service do they use? Can this insight shed light on any problems?
2. Need to track why…
Believe it or not, there is a great deal of opportunity that can come from your lost or inactive customers. But you need to know why they left, first! Once you have identified who your lost or inactive customers are, the next step is to establish a process to follow up with these customers to understand what has changed.
From your lost customers, learning why they left and what it will take to get them back is critical. Because of your past relationship, there’s a good chance that you can earn this business back and immediately increase your revenue.
From your inactive customers, it’s important to know why the sales from these accounts is dropping… was there a change in their business or a change in your business that is driving them away such as increased pricing, changes in reps, or quality problems. These customers can be more easily saved.
3. Need feedback that is unbiased …
It’s not recommended to have the salesperson that was handling the account be the person to do the follow-up. Consider this, if the sales person knows there is an issue with a client, are they going to be in a hurry to tell their manager, or are they going to hope the problem or customer fades away? Have an unbiased internal team member or third party assist with the follow-up to ensure you are getting an impartial answer.
It’s not always easy to hear why customers are leaving you, but it’s an opportunity to fix these issues, stop the leakage grow your revenue as a result.
If you’d like some help with it, please reach out at (216-831-1165) I’m happy to help you get started.
