Former Customers Can Be Goldmine – Both in Marketing Research and Winback Sales

The other day, I stumbled across this May 28, 2010 blog post from MySmallBusinessMentor.com, which discussed how to re-activate former customers. While you should definitely reach out to former customers and try to get them to buy again, your former customers can also provide a wealth of information from a marketing research and process improvement standpoint.

If a customer has lapsed for, say a 90- or 180-day period, or a customer who used to buy once a month is now only buying every other month, reach out to that customer and mention that you noticed he/she isn’t frequenting your business as much, and ask if there’s anything with your company that they aren’t getting, or would like to see. It could be that they’re not happy with the product, or they found a similar, less expensive product from a competitor. Maybe they’ve “outgrown” your company’s products; or maybe they lost their job and can no longer afford it, whatever. You won’t know unless you ask.

For the purposes of marketing research, a lapsed customer can be more valuable than a loyal customer, especially when you consider that acquiring a new customer is six times more costly than retaining an existing customer. Taking the time to hear out a former customer can help you take corrective action to prevent other customer defections, improve your practices and product benefits, and even win back your lost customers.

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Tags: customer attrition, customer defections, Customer Loyalty, customer satisfaction, customer winback, lapsed customers, marketing research, MySmallBusinessMentor.com