Eight Tips To Get Inactive Customers Excited About Your Business Again

Without customer loyalty, a business can struggle to succeed. While your business may have a few standout customers who have become brand ambassadors for your product or service, the unengaged or inactive customers are often the ones you need feedback from the most. These customers can provide candid and honest feedback as to why they aren't more engaged with your business.
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To help get these customers excited about your business again, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council each share one way to reconnect with unengaged customers. Follow their recommendations to gain the feedback and repeat business of these once-lost customers. 

1. Treat Customers Like Long-Lost Friends

Treat everyone like a long-lost friend, and responses are almost guaranteed. This is especially true for unengaged customers. For these folks, sending mass, impersonal emails is a total waste of time (and, in fact, might hurt your chances of getting true feedback more than it helps). Instead, take the personal approach of reaching out by picking up the phone and calling them directly. If you don’t reach them, leave a voicemail. This unexpected gesture will be warmly received and result in the response rates for future correspondences increasing dramatically. We also send handwritten cards to customers who are inactive. It’s another personal touchpoint that is rare, unexpected and stands out. We've seen that it's an automatic way to get inactive customers to respond and become engaged once again. - Arian Radmand, IgnitePost

​2. Take The Personal Approach

If possible, it's always great to reach out to a dormant client personally—especially if the account is large enough—and suggest a call or a meeting to run a retrospective on the past engagement, provide feedback to both sides to ensure the future process is efficient and to change the account management team, if needed. - Daria Gonzalez, Wunderdogs

3. Send An Email

Check in with them. If you haven't heard from a customer in a while, send them an email to see how they're doing. Ask them for feedback on the products they previously purchased, letting them know there's no wrong answer. Try to get to the bottom of why the customer may not be as connected with your company. When you learn what the reason is, you'll be able to find a suitable solution to get them excited about your products again. Consider offering an enticing deal that they can share with their friends. This can include exclusive access to a new product or a 20% discount on any service. When a customer feels like they're being heard, they're more likely to reconnect and start engaging with your company again. - Nick Venditti, StitchGolf 

​4. Unveil Something New

Get your unengaged customer excited by sharing something new, such as new products, a new website interface or a new loyalty program. When customers aren't active, they're bored or don't find your content and offerings useful. Reengage them by giving them a reason to come back and visit your site or store. When they do go and look around at what's new, you can continue to engage them by asking them for feedback. To take it a step further, incentivize your audience by offering a discount or prize for those who leave feedback. - Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner

5. Make A Phone Call

The best way to reconnect is with a phone call! As unscalable as this sounds, emails, posts on social media and even letters may not work in this case. The best way is with a phone call where a casual conversation can happen and you can ask them what their reasons were for leaving. Your goal here is to listen more, ask the right follow-up questions and be extremely understanding of their frustrations. When you're toward the end, you can then throw in a surprise offer of, say, 70% off on merchandise to check if hearing them out worked as a mechanism to get them back on the roster. Lots of times customers just want to be heard and not be treated as a data point. Very few companies are able to just go back to what's worked for years since they're focused on rebuilding the wheel—a waste of time. - Candice Georgiadis, Digital Day 

6. Reach Out On Social Media
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One way to reconnect with unengaged customers is to reach out to them on social media. Some customers prefer the more personal touch of social media, and it can be a great way to get their feedback and get them excited again. Almost everyone uses social media, and it's a convenient and free tool for users. You can use remarketing strategies to reach out to unengaged users. You can also offer customers who provide feedback incentives, such as discounts or coupons. Doing so will make it more appealing for your audience to engage with you. - Blair Williams, MemberPress

7. Showcase Programs For Past Customers

A very effective way of reengaging inactive customers is to implement programs for your past and current customers. Then, let them know that as past customers they have access to these programs, services or products. This will instantly get them excited and bring them back to business. Once you have them, you can show them why they need your other services and how they can help make their lives easier. - Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster

8. Ask For Help

Believe it or not, you can get inactive customers to respond to your emails by simply asking for help. People are more likely to open emails if they think there's something they can do for you. Also, your subscribers are more likely to open your messages if they see an incentive. One of our top-performing recovery headlines is, "I could use your help with this..." This email has a survey inside that inactive subscribers can fill out for an exclusive discount. I believe brand leaders across all industries can use this strategy to reach more lost customers. - John Turner, SeedProd LLC



Source: https://www.forbes.com

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