There is a myth that if you provide amazing service, it’s the only thing customers need to remain loyal to your business. Providing amazing service is a necessity. If your customers don’t have a good experience, you won’t be in business long. But having a good experience is no longer enough.
Insurance companies and agents everywhere lost millions of dollars when Geico offered to save you 15% in 15 minutes or less. Where is the loyalty? With more options, greater discounts, convenience, speed, and awareness, customer loyalty is declining.
So how do you stand out? How do you rebook or reconnect with past customers?
Stay Top of Mind to Reconnect With Past Customers
Can you honestly remember the name of your carpet cleaner from two years ago? Most likely not, and that’s the point! We like to do business with those we interact with the most. This is why social media and email have been so important in engaging with customers. They allow customers to remember you and your story and to connect with you.
However, there are better ways to keep in touch and reconnect with past customers and more personal ways of reaching out. The most personal and effective of them all? Texting. There is no better way to connect with your customers than through a text.
Staying top of mind has its challenges. You might worry about reaching out too much or coming across as spam. Or you might not know what to say or if customers will even remember who you are. Here are two strategies to use to reconnect with past customers via text.
Reaching out when you have never used texting before
When you sign up for Skipio, you get a brand-new, local 10-digit phone number. This is the number where all your messages are sent and received.
Because it’s a new number, they won’t recognize it as you. That’s why you need an introduction. The introduction message serves as a great way to reach out to past customers because it’s warm, friendly, helpful, and doesn’t ask them to purchase a product.
The local 10-digit number feels personal; it feels like they are receiving a personal text from you because they are. If it’s personal, people respond. If people respond, they book appointments. Why? Because you and your product or service are now top of mind!
For example, consider a message like this: “Hey [First Name], it’s Freddy with [Company Name]! This is our new VIP texting line. Please save it in your phone and let me know if there is anything I can do for you!
Simple and effective. We have seen texts like this spike hundreds in revenue for clients on their very first text. Chryslyn, a Direct Sales Consultant, got 44 responses within the first 5-minutes of sending this type of message. And from those responses she made over $300 in new sales.
“It works because sometimes just getting back in touch is enough. Texting gives them an easy way to respond, interact, and even book an appointment with you. It works because it gets seen and it works because it gets read.”
You might be thinking, “That’s it?” Yes, that’s it! It can be hard to believe, but we have seen it work time and time again. And it’s only the first step.
Here are 3 tips I would consider when reaching out to a group of past customers if you have never used texting to interact with before.
Break Down Your List Into Bitesize Chunks
If you sent out a message to 500 people and half of them respond back, that’s 250 responses. It can take a long time to respond to that many people. Breaking down your list has tons of benefits.
For example, it helps you test messaging that works. Also, it helps you be as responsive as you can to past clients. Further, it helps you learn what people are thinking and expecting as you go. Test it out with 100 clients and see what happens.
Simply Get Back in Touch
I’ve already mentioned this, but just to reiterate the key point: A lot of times we feel like we have to reach out on a special occasion or with some major discount. That’s just not the case. Sometimes just a simple text message is enough for a client to remember you and your product or service. You don’t have to sell anything at all!
This has happened multiple times with our clients here at Skipio. They reach out with a simple message telling people about their new VIP texting line. Then comes an overwhelming client response of bookings and sales when there was never even a sales pitch. Be confident in your business!
Ignore Any Negativity
There will be a few past customers with bad attitudes. Anytime you reach out to a list of customers you are going to receive some negativity. Don’t worry about it. Remove those people from the list and move on. It is unlikely that they would have purchased from you again anyway.
Don’t sweat the small stuff and don’t let one or two negative responses distract you from the 40 or 50 positive ones. Sometimes you catch people on a bad day, and other times people are just rude. It’s not personal. It’s just reality. Take any constructive feedback as a chance to improve customer service. If it’s not constructive, don’t let it bother you.
Texting in the Long-Term
The first message we talked about was the introduction message. It’s great. It works. It’s more of a one-time message. When you talk about rebooking customers over time, there are two things to consider.
The more specific you get, the better
If you have the client data, segment your list by specific attributes. When you have specific segments, you can come up with extremely effective messaging.
For example, a personal trainer might have clients who came in for losing weight, or clients for gaining muscle, or clients for overall health. You can craft a specific message for each of these client needs. To sufficiently reconnect with past customers, they must feel like you haven’t forgotten them. If you make people feel important, you win.
Be consistent
Many past clients you re-engage with won’t come back and purchase from you, at least with the first message. Be consistent and you will always be top of mind for customers when they are ready to purchase.
The goal of reconnecting with customers isn’t always to generate immediate sales but rather to keep your business top of mind. That way, later that week when their friend asks them for recommendations, you are the first business that comes up.
Consistently engaging with past customers will help you consistently generate more sales and more referrals. In order to be consistent with hundreds of customers, you need a tool to help you manage conversations and automate messaging. You also need to optimize your lead nurturing and use those same strategies to engage former customers.
Acquiring new clients and reaching out to past customers doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive. You don’t have to choose one over the other. You should do both. Keep it simple. Start with a small segmented list, and scale from there.
How have you had success trying to reconnect with past customers?
