There’re out there. Every company has them – those customers that have bought from you in the past but haven’t made a purchase in a few months or maybe even a few years. Many companies ignore this customer segment because frankly, the perception is they aren’t buying because there’s a problem and who wants to deal with problems? This is not necessarily true.
We recently completed a project with an organization that had several thousand inactive customers. Some of these customers bought over half a million dollars worth of products two years ago and then… nothing. Others started small and bought for a few years but never grew into sizeable accounts. When we initially talked to the client, they wanted us to contact these inactive customers to determine what happened. What went wrong, what did or didn’t they do? They wanted our help to get to the root cause of the problem – the reason the customers hadn’t been buying.
Here’s what we discovered….
The Inactive Customers were Not Dissatisfied…
In fact, the inactive customers were more satisfied than their active customers.
How is this possible, right? It doesn’t make sense! Well, what we discovered is that their current customers are having to deal with challenges many face right now with supply chain including product and material shortages, delays in lead times and deliveries — much of which is out of their control. This is leading to frustration and levels of dissatisfaction. There are, however, opportunities for improvement that they do have control over such as communication and improved lead times for quotes.
The Inactive Customers Wanted to Work with Them…
The reason they weren’t was because they didn’t have any current need or projects. In this situation, it’s the end client that drives the projects and ultimately the need for the products and purchases. If the end client doesn’t have a need or isn’t specifically specifying their brand, there is no need to purchase. This explained why they might buy a half million dollars worth of products in one year and then nothing two years later. The inactive customers wanted to work with them, and many mentioned that they were looking for opportunities to do so.
The Inactive Customers were Driving New Strategy …
As a result, it was determined that the Inactive Customers held a great deal of growth potential for the organization. It was determined that the key was to engage the end client through various sales and marketing efforts and drive them to specify their products more often; something they hadn’t done before. This also enabled them to be proactive and have some control over the process and results versus waiting and waiting for a sale.
So, I hope you’ll consider these Customer Acceleration tips that will help you make more money from your customers and make them happier in the process!
And if you’d like some help with it, please reach out at (216-876-1165) I’m happy to help you get started.
