5 ways to win back lost consumers

In an era of globalisation and diversification, businesses are expanding their product portfolios to tap in potential markets. The result: people having a wide range of brands to choose from. As customers are spoilt for choice, nobody seems to be complaining, except probably the marketers. Amid the brand-hopping, people leaving the website without buying anything can harm profit margins.

Image : shutterstock

Surely, a few customers here and there would not matter much, as there is always some new fish to catch! Harvard Business Review says wireless carriers lose over three percent subscribers each month. While some customers off your loyalty programme might not affect your company’s balance sheet, as is the case with insurance companies and gyms, but if it is a chronic feature for your website, it is time to do something. Here are a few things that might help you get back those lost numbers:

Look into the why

Once you decide to look into why your customers are leaving a website without purchasing anything, you need to find the reasons. Your humility in accepting a mistake will go a long way in getting things back on track. Surveys and customer feedback are great way to know what’s lacking. It might be something as trivial as the website’s layout or limited payment options or even a better deal at another website.

The number game

If you are on the path of introspection, data analytics could be your compass. Good data can help you decode customers’ shopping history to spot trends. Every cancelled order and every unchecked out purchase has a story to tell, so make sure you know the story to get back those upset consumers. As per a study by Marketing Metrics, sellers have a 20 to 40 percent chance of winning back an ex-customer.

To do or to not to do

As much as you want a customer back, not every consumer is worth winning back. There might be various reasons behind a person switching to a different website, make sure you are trying to fight for the right reason. For instance, if the customer was unsatisfied with the price of a product and you feel the cost is non-negotiable as per industry standards, you might want to take a backseat rather than lowering the price.

A better deal

There’s little in the world that can’t be overcome with a killing offer. Discounts, offers, coupons, or deals are a great way to win over customers. Go through your clientele’s expectation to get an optimal price-product combination. Alternatively, you could use market research tools like SurveyAnalytics for a trade-off analysis. The key here is to ensure that you don’t end up with a bad bargain just to keep a customer happy.

Communication

Once you are able to win back customer, the job doesn’t end here. If we are talking about long term gains, people would want more reasons to keep coming back. So you need to keep communicating with them and following up on what kind of products are they looking for. Studies indicate that over 41 percent of customers visiting e-commerce websites expect help within the first five minutes of contacting the team.

Winning back customers is not only good for the business side of things but also helps point to loopholes and potential weaknesses in websites. Most customers are game for purchasing anything, the moment they spot a good bargain, so it all boils down to how far you are willing to go to keep defectors at bay.