Retention Tactics – how to re-engage clients

Through the help of our Point of Sale (POS) Computer System, we can see which clients have not been in recently. Hopefully, you can pull a report that shows their sales over the past 12 months, too, so you know who are your best clients on the list.

There are retention tactics that are more personal, and there are retention tactics that are less personal. My recommendation is to pair the more personal tactics with the higher value clients. Since your resources (time, money, and energy) are limited, you need to leverage these resources to produce the best results. And personal outreach that shows you care will be most effective and create the best results when focused on your best clients.

Here are the tactics, in order from most personal (best clients) to least personal (worst clients) :

• Personal Phone Call – from you, the owner.
• Personalized Email with embedded video (high open rates) – I use bombbomb.com for this.
• Handwritten note or letter mailed to them – from you, the owner.
• A phone call from someone important on your team.
• Oversized Postcard, 5” x 9”.
• An email with embedded video, but not personalized.
• Email without video – from you, the owner.
• Text Message (DON’T DO THIS).

The key component of these segmented retention tactics is to show that you and your team CARE deeply for the client. Their opinion matters. They are appreciated and important. And you miss them. You are always looking for feedback and will jump at an opportunity to make a wrong a right.

Make sure you don’t do all the talking. You are primarily there to listen. I have always been told….. God gave us 2 ears and 1 mouth, and we need to use it in that ratio. I think it should be more like a 5:1 ratio of listening to talking. This way, you can make sure you understand, rather than putting your energy into being understood. Let me know how these work for you or if you need help with them!

Make a BIG EFFORT to show your best-lost clients that you CARE and will do anything to have them back as a regular client. Put yourself out there. Start looking for trends that are driving clients away from your business so that you can address and reverse these trends. You will be surprised how forgiving and appreciative most clients will be of your efforts to understand through caring.