3 Tips for Winning Back Lost Customers

Here is the uncomfortable truth: As good as you are, most prospective customers don’t choose you. They choose someone else. Unless you have more than a 50% market share, (rare) most of your prospects choose to do business with your competitors instead of you. Why? This article will help you uncover some of those reasons and discover how to win back your lost customers. 

And while I speak for a living, (learn more at DavidAvrin.com) I’m not a motivational speaker. As a business author, I’m not your cheerleader, parent, teacher or therapist who is here to pump you up and tell you how brilliant you are. I am not your personal coach or accountability partner. I am something far more important. I am your customer. I am your client, patient or vendor.  Better still, I am your prospective customer or client. I’m the one deciding whether to do business with you, and I have so many choices. You are merely one of them. 

As your customer, if you make me wait, I get frustrated.  If you tell me “no,” I will easily find someone who will tell me “yes.” If you can’t make me happy, meet my needs and give me a good experience, I will find someone who can and will. It’s not a big deal. I do it every day. Then again, so do you. In this article, I'll be showing you three major reasons you're losing customers. And, more importantly, how to win them back. 

1. Don't tell us "no" 

For front line workers, the easiest thing when confronted with an unfamiliar situation is to just say “no” or “Sorry, I’m afraid we can’t,” and then move on. Big mistake. How about empowering your people to find a way to say yes? Or if they have to say no, offer an alternative that they can agree to. Not only do you save an important client or customer relationship, but you get to be the hero for solving a problem. Customers remember and they reward you with positive reviews and future business.

Why you do it:  

Many in business adopt some measure of the franchise model. That franchise is centered around predictability. The more things we can standardize and control, the more things we can predict, the fewer things can go awry. And if we can reduce straying from the anticipated scenarios, it’s easier to manage our business, create budgets and pay our bills. 

However, the cost of managing for predictability is the lost opportunities from better navigating unanticipated scenarios. We lose opportunities to accommodate our customers (who are often just being human) and we lose many of those customers from the frustration generated  by our inflexibility.

Why we hate it:  

We don’t like being told no. Worse yet, when we can conceive of simple scenarios that would involve some measure of “yes,” but others don’t see it, refuse to see it, or see it but still say “no,” we are frustrated. In our mind, a simple accommodation seems reasonable. When you don’t offer that accommodation, we view you as unreasonable — and we don’t like doing business with those that are unreasonable.

A better approach: 

Eliminate the word “no” from your company’s vocabulary. Either replace it with “It would be my pleasure!” or some version “Here’s what we can do.” Create a culture of problem-solving and accommodation. It doesn’t mean that every customer gets what they want, the way they want it every time, but they should get something.  Redirect your efforts to discovering and communicating you can do.  People will often understand that you can’t do something if you offer an alternative or some level of accommodation.

Gather your team for a brainstorming session. Order in food, put your cell-phones on vibrate and roll up your sleeves. Walk through every familiar and unfamiliar scenario with your customers, clients or patients and discuss all the times you say “no.” Categorize them into 3 sections: 1. Have to say no, 2. Offer an alternative, and 3. Find a way to say yes.  Chart all the ideas and plot them into one of the three sections. Role play both likely and unlikely scenarios. Equip and empower your team to think on-the-fly and effectively deal with the scenarios they confront.

Work together to not only anticipate unusual scenarios, but to truly understand your customers, why they are making the request, what our flexibility would mean to them, and what their satisfaction would mean to us. The value of the exercise is in the process. When we help our people to understand what the “extra mile” and flexibility means to our customers and their satisfaction, our people will often understand and rise to the occasion.

2. Play the long game

A gentleman approached me after a speaking gig and told me of a story of his father who was a traveling lingerie salesman in the 1940’s (true story.) He said that his dad would take his sales case filled with ladies undergarments and visit women’s clothing stores across the country — driving from store to store and take orders. The man said that his father would occasionally take him along on driving trips promising dinner at a restaurant (a big deal during tough economic times) and a stay in a hotel. He told me that he would watch his father sell and listen to his pitch.

On one occasion, a small clothing store owner liked a particular garment and ordered two dozen. Surprisingly, his father told her: “Just order one dozen. If you need more, just call and I will have them shipped.”

In the car later, the boy asked his father why he would turn down that big sale. His father responded: “Son, I know these products and there is no way she would have sold all of them. I’m going to be passing through this town again in 6 months. If she hasn’t sold them, then she will think that my products aren’t good and she’ll never buy again. I’d rather sell her what she needs rather than what I need her to buy. If I can deliver what I promised, then she’ll buy from me forever.”

Brilliant business lesson! If you plan to be in business next year and the year after, then play the long game. Only sell what you know you can deliver.

Why you do it:

People are eager for business. We have bills to pay and we need to work. I don’t think most people set-out intending to fail or under deliver on their promises. To the contrary, most in business truly believe they can come through for their client. But, the truth is that not everyone who has done something, has the ability to do it for others — at a high level. Just because you SnapChat your friends and get hundreds of “likes” on your Instagram post, doesn’t mean that you are a social media marketing expert and can help companies grow their business. 

You are only an expert after you’ve earned it, you’ve demonstrated competency and expertise in the marketplace by successfully doing the work you promised. You have a track record, sufficient staff and bandwidth to complete the tasks you contracted for.

Why we hate it: 

We trusted you and you failed to deliver as we expected. You claimed to be able to do something that you weren’t able to provide at the level you promised ’Nuff said.

A better solution: 

Don’t pursue or accept any work that you can’t deliver at a very high level. At the very least, partner with another professional or firm with the necessary experience, resources  and capabilities to ensure satisfaction. 

If you are wanting to expand your service offering, then get training, build your skills or volunteer/apprentice with others to learn a new skill. Don’t simply guess before you accept work. Know! Sometimes the best way to make a lot of money in the long run, is to reject money for work you can’t crush in the short term.  It’s far better to lose a sale than to lose your reputation.

3. Automation Kills Loyalty

Business is like high school. When given the choice, we do business with people we like and people we trust. We trust people who take the time to know something about us, speak directly to us and thank us for our time. We like people who like us. People who like us, don’t spam us.

P.T. Barnum famously opined that “There’s a sucker born every minute.”  The truth is that we rarely respond to your mass marketing because we don’t want to feel like a sucker. We don’t want you to think we were taken in by your pitch…or scam. Regardless of whether your pitch was intended, or appears in anyway to be a scam, it is often taken that way. Simply, in the interest of time, you are thrown into the trash (deleted) with the rest of the spam. We rarely even take the time to read it.

Why you do it:  

You send mass emails for the cost and time savings achieved, pure and simple. You have been lured by technology and efficiency and have justified the impersonal nature by deluding yourself that the “mail-merge” feature will achieve personalization. Trust me. They will notice the lack of meaningful information about them, their business or the specific challenges they face.

The responses you do get will often reinforce in your mind that the return-on-investment was worthwhile financially. What you undervalue is the cost to your reputation and brand. (Which are essentially the same thing.)

You automate to reach more people in less time for less money. Your emails reach hundreds of thousands. Your calls reach countless homes and requires little to no staff time. It seems like a smart and efficient way to do business. The bean counters are happy. Your cost-per-contact plunges and your marketing reaches the masses like never before. However…

Why we hate it: 

Quite simply, we are overwhelmed by the crap that fills our email-box. The spam is overwhelming and so we tune it out. We delete….quickly and often. Those that spam us  (maybe not your intention, but certainly our perception) are not just thrown in a mental bucket of being “disposable” and “dismissible,” but also classified as “annoying” and “intrusive” — two words you do not want attached to your name.  We think: “Why does so and so keep sending me this junk?” Then, if you ever do have an opportunity for a legitimate connection, we are already pre-disposed against you. 

A better approach: 

Balance. Balance efficiency with effectiveness — and effectiveness is not a measure of how many people you reach. It is a measure of how many of them do, act and feel the way you want them to. An effective outreach is one that elicits positive feelings toward your brand. It generate interest from your prospects and leads to connection, engagement and sales. 

Automate for pedestrian tasks. Automate when you have no need or desire to influence, but merely to deliver or notify. Personalize when you are educating, persuading, enlightening and soliciting. Delivered authentically, your results will reward your effort.

Article excerpted from David’s best-selling book, Why Customers Leave.