5 Steps to Reconnect with Customers and Improve Customer Loyalty

Customer retention is an essential element of any business strategy. It not only helps you assess how many new customers you’re gaining, but it also reveals how well you’re meeting the needs of your existing clientele and builds customer loyalty.

The key to retaining customers lies in providing superior customer service. When you do, 93% of customers are likely to purchase from you again. Customer service is all about delivering a positive user experience. You can achieve that by maintaining communication with and re-engaging past and present customers.

Developing an effective strategy that helps you reconnect with your followers helps solidify relationships that result in the best lead generation and sales growth. To improve customer loyalty and build overall success for your business, you must know why customer loyalty is important and how to most effectively reconnect with your customers.

The Importance of Improving Customer Loyalty

Customer loyalty should be one of your primary business goals. Continuing to provide valuable information to them will help maintain their loyalty. Maybe a customer visited your website once and hasn’t returned. Perhaps a shopper made a couple of purchases but hasn’t been back in a while.

Whatever the reason for their absence, nurturing your customers is important for the following reasons:

• Economical: Keeping an existing customer costs significantly less than trying to acquire a new one.
• Boosts ROI: A company that increases customer retention by only 5% will see a 95% increase in profits.
• More purchases: Loyal customers know the quality and value of your products, so they’re apt to spend more money and make more frequent purchases than a new customer.
• Word of mouth promotion: A happy customer is more likely to share your information with their contacts, thus expanding your reach and improving lead generation.

Although customer loyalty impacts your business in several ways, customer retention is easy to overlook. A company can become so focused on acquiring new prospects, they don’t keep in touch with their existing customers.

Developing meaningful relationships is important to staying front of mind. By creating an effective customer retention strategy, you ensure you’re providing a positive customer experience that keeps people coming back for your offerings again and again.

5 Steps to Reconnect with Customers

Whether you simply need to reestablish a connection or are trying to win back business, re-engaging with your customers is essential to your success. Follow these five steps to reconnect with customers and rebuild your relationship for revenue generation.

1. Identify Who You’ve Lost

The first step in reconnecting with customers is to identify the people you’ve lost. Review customer databases, sales records, and website metrics for customer details. Use this information to create a separate spreadsheet that consists solely of customers with which you need to reconnect.

Assess the demographics of these contacts. Look at qualitative and quantitative data, like age, gender, geographic location, and purchase behavior. Use that information to create customized content designed to drive these targets back to your site.

2. Determine Where in the Process They Left

It’s important to understand where in the customer journey people are abandoning your site. Walk through the process and look for possible opportunities that would deter a person from completing a purchase.

Review website activity and determine what call-to-action buttons are gaining interest and which ones aren’t being reached. See how much time people are spending on each page. Discover how many click-throughs you’re receiving, and what content is engaging people and what isn’t being seen. Find out where the breakdown is happening so you can make any needed adjustments to improve the user journey.

3. Discover Why They Didn’t Stick Around

Next, you want to understand the reason that drove your customers away. Was it high pricing? Did they choose a competitor? Were they simply not yet ready to buy?

Send a brief survey to customers to find these answers. Keep an eye on social media accounts. Monitor discussions about your products. Read customer reviews. Don’t ignore negative feedback. It can be an invaluable tool in helping you improve customer loyalty. Find out why people aren’t converting and what you can do to entice them back.

4. Reach Out to Your Contacts

Once you’ve identified your contacts and have a better understanding of what happened in their journey, you can begin to reach out and rebuild your relationship with them. Consider sending a personalized email. A newsletter packed with useful information will resonate and can draw them back to your website. Provide a special offer to increase the likelihood of enticing them to make a purchase.

Even if you don’t succeed in returning them to your company, at least they’ll see you’ve made the effort to win their business. This can boost your reputation and leave a positive lasting impression for brand identity.

5. Engage People on Social Media

More than 80% of Americans have a social media account. This is a huge pool of targetable customers. You can search for people based on interests, demographics, and even purchase behavior. Find customers you’ve lost along the way and share deals and updates about your products. Social media is a more conversational, instantaneous way to deliver information. You can engage in real-time chats to discuss customer needs and which of your offerings may interest them.

Social media content is highly shareable, so people can distribute your information to their contacts with the click of a button. Reconnecting with customers in this way shows you’re willing to meet them where they are. It also shows you’re reachable and gives your brand a more clear identity. All of this helps to improve customer service and boost customer retention.

Marketing Professionals Can Help You Improve Customer Loyalty

Re-engaging with lost customers is an effective way to improve customer loyalty and boost sales growth. Televerde is a global sales and marketing services company that can help create an effective reconnection campaign. Let us put you in touch with past and present customers you haven’t heard from in a while. This can help bring in qualified leads and close deals for ultimate business success.