How to recover lost customers or 6 errors that make customers forget about you

One of the most important aspects of doing business is retaining your customers and working with them. Attracting new customers is always more expensive for small businesses than working with existing ones. At the same time, the average check of regular customers according to statistics, if it changes, is for the better for business. Conversely, the loss (or non-return) of customers for a second and so on purchase is a serious loss for the entire business in fact. Therefore, the question of “how to return lost customers” is worth a separate consideration, at least.

In this article we will talk about how to return lost customers in a slightly unusual manner. I will list 10 main mistakes due to which, according to my observations, a small business most often loses customers, and you, correcting them (or not allowing them), will understand how to return lost customers.

10 reasons why customers will not return to you
Like several times before, when I listed here on Entrepreneur-Pro, I won’t confirm the correct location of each item in the list itself. In the end, this is not a rating, but just a list. So, dear businessmen, if you want not to return the lost customers, so that they don’t leave you at all, do not make the following mistakes in your business:

1. Inappropriate communication
It will sound trite for someone, but in reality many businesses simply use the wrong means in communication with clients, send faxes without specifying that they prefer e-mail, for example. And it may well be that they have not used faxes at all for a long time. However, everyone prefers e-mail today, no? So why use a fax at all? So used to – I see no other reasons, honestly. But as they are used to, they lose customers.

And it’s not about faxes, in general. This is just such a fascinating example :-). The fact is that you need to know which channel the client prefers – telephone, letters, e-mail, and in this way to remind him of himself. Maybe he doesn’t read e-mail, but maybe he doesn’t answer phone calls from unfamiliar numbers. If you do not know this, he will find another supplier.

2. The level of additional services and services
Regardless of the goods you sell or services, you always have additional services in the process of interacting with customers. And repairs can be done in different ways, and a shirt can be sold in different ways, agree. All this, which seems to happen unnoticed in parallel with the main sale, is very important for the buyer. It is from this that he has the impression of your work, remember. He already knows the main product or service and roughly represents what he will get from it. But what will get from the whole process of interaction with you, no.

3. Bad pricing
I must say right away that this does not mean that you should be the cheapest. No, and it’s even bad, I think so. This is for those who have no other advantages and benefits for the buyer. And such a business has fewer prospects. Pricing policy is the correspondence of what you offer to how much you take. To some extent connected with the previous paragraph. If you have excellent service, bonuses, super service and the longest warranty, you can be more expensive and 20-30% (and even more) than all your competitors. But if you, on the contrary, offer everything the same as everyone else, and take more, then … you already know what.

4. We do not know our competitors
Not knowing your direct competitors, you will miss a lot. It will be more difficult for you to return lost customers, that’s for sure. Firstly, you will have problems with pricing (see paragraph above). How can you determine a good pricing policy if you have no idea what others are offering and for what money. At the same time, I want to note that it was not by chance that I wrote “direct” competitors. There will probably be those on the market that you should not look at. Maybe there will be market leaders with different approaches and strategies. How to deal with them, I wrote here. Focus your attention on those who really can “take” your customers – potential and real. Also look around how they conduct their marketing, where and how they are advertised, etc.

5. Do not know our product
Do not sell or offer services and products about which you have insufficient knowledge. Nothing spoils the impression of a buyer as much as ignorance of their own product. If you (or your sellers, of course, not only you personally) do not have answers to all questions of the buyer, he is unlikely to buy from you, especially for the second time. Moreover, he may not ask questions immediately, but after the purchase. With further maintenance, for example (if there is one for this product), or when trying to figure out its functionality, if it is a complex product. And precisely, then the client will decide not to buy from you further.

6. Product quality mismatch
Everything is clear here, you don’t even have to say why customers will not return to you. Although, again, it is worth thinking about pricing.