How To Re-Engage With Existing Customers Through Outbound Sales

Re-engaging with existing customers is an effective way of increasing revenue without having to incur the often-significant costs that are associated with acquiring new customers. An existing customer is far more likely to buy from your business than a new customer is, and they typically spend more than a new customer will. Despite these significant benefits of existing customer re-engagement, many businesses are yet to realise the full potential it can bring including a substantial boost to sales revenue and profits. By launching a customer re-engagement campaign for your business, you can increase revenue in a sustainable and cost-effective way. While there are many channels that you can use to re-engage customers, outbound sales remains an effective and under-utilised method for many businesses and has the potential to deliver excellent results.

In this article, we explore how to best re-engage with existing customers within two key groups: those with an on-going need (including subscription products and services) and existing customers who have not purchased for a while and require winning back.

Existing Customers With An On-Going Need

In many respects existing customers with an on-going need are a great group to engage with. The clear potential for significant recurring sales and the opportunity to build great long-term customer relationships make re-engagement with this customer group a very worthwhile exercise. If your business offers subscription products or services to its customers, it is well placed to make the most of this form of re-engagement through outbound sales. Many businesses serve customers with an on-going need including those operating in the food, beauty and automotive sectors to name but a few.

In order to effectively re-engage existing customers with an on-going need it is important that any outbound sales activity focuses on the process of formulating a great customer relationship and building understanding about why the customer needs to buy something. Addressing both of these aspects is the most effective way to re-engage this group of customers and secure the all-important recurring sales.

Formulate A Great Customer Relationship

Formulating great customer relationships is critical to the success of every business and this is especially the case when it comes to re-engaging customers. This means taking the time to get to know each customer, their preferences and a bit about their life before seeking to secure sales. The more that you can learn about each customer, the better placed you will be to engage with them in a productive way and provide value that they will appreciate.

The best customer relationships are developed based on customer care and timely communication. Customers should feel like you genuinely care about them and their requirements and that they are more than just another number. For example, if you are a car dealership that is looking to secure more repeat business in the form of MOTs and servicing of vehicles that you have sold, you would benefit from adopting a professional approach to customer care.

Instead of simply calling a customer when they are likely to be approaching their MOT or service due date, why not call them two months after they have purchased their car to see if they are enjoying their new car and if they need any help with anything? If you have followed this approach, when the MOT or service due date is approaching and you call them with a friendly reminder, it is likely to be well received as you have already established a good customer relationship and demonstrated your commitment to customer care and great communication. Your ability to secure on-going sales will be much improved once you have developed the customer relationship.

The approach and principles in this example apply equally well to other businesses that provide different products or services. Delivering service of such quality requires time and expertise that even the most well-resourced businesses may lack in-house. By working with a professional outbound sales call centre, we can help your business to formulate great customer relationships from the moment that one of your customers make a purchase from your business.

Build An Understanding Of Their Need

Customers with an on-going need are very much primed to become a consistent source of sales. In order to deliver for customers and provide great service, building an understanding of their need is crucial. By finding out why a customer is continuing to buy something on a regular basis, you can become best placed to meet this customer’s need and recommend the most suitable products/services to meet their needs. It may well be the case that their need to buy has changed and there is a more suitable product/service that will suit their need today.

For example, you may be a beauty/skincare business that provides skincare subscription boxes for customers that contain everything that they need to manage their skin. When the customer first started purchasing from you, they had oily skin and therefore opted for the oily skin subscription box containing products targeted for oily skin. However, recently they have developed dry skin and therefore would be better served by the dry skin subscription box.

If you have not built an understanding of that customer’s need, you may not realise that their need has changed and that they could be best served by another product. Once you understand their need, you can help them to switch to the appropriate subscription box which has two significant benefits. Firstly, and most importantly, the customer will receive great service and be delighted with your business and secondly, you will win their long-term loyalty and repeat business. Therefore, the benefits of understanding their need are significant and can deliver great results.

Re-Engage Existing Customers With An On-Going Need Through Outbound Sales

Re-engaging existing customers with an on-going need is easier and more successful with help from the experts. Our established outbound sales call centre is ready to help you re-engage existing customers with an on-going need using our trained call centre agents, proven processes, and advanced systems. Why not get in touch with our outbound sales experts and find out how we can help you by calling 01794 230 230 or completing our contact form?

Existing Customers That Have Not Purchased And Need Winning Back

Existing customers that have not purchased recently and need winning back can be a great source of additional sales for any business. As you have already dedicated significant resources in both time and money to acquire the customer in the first place, why not utilise resources designed to win them back? While not all customers who have left a business will be suitable for win-back, a significant number can be and if an attempt is not made to win them back it can be a significant lost opportunity. In almost all cases, there is a good prospect of winning an existing customer back with an appropriate win-back campaign. The prospect of winning a customer back increases further when you have a defined process, trained sales agents, and the required expertise to execute the win-back campaign.

In many cases, the success of re-engaging with customers that have not purchased recently and require winning back relies upon carefully selecting the customers for your win-back campaign. Confirming that they have been a good customer in the past will help in two significant ways. Firstly, it increases your chance of success, if they have been, they are more likely to be a good customer moving forward and are likely to be receptive to a win-back interaction. Secondly, carefully selecting customers for win-back helps to ensure that valuable outbound sales resources are focused where they are likely to have the most impact.

There are a number of ways to deliver a successful win-back campaign, and each draws on different strategies and tactics but all rely on the skill of the outbound sales agents that execute them to deliver. It’s why many businesses will outsource their win-back campaigns to a professional outbound call centre like Impact to achieve the best possible results.

Use Relationship Building To Understand Why

In order to successfully win customers back, it is important to understand exactly why they have not purchased from you recently. There are a number of reasons why this could be from the fact their needs may have changed or that they might have experienced poor/frustrating service through to they may have found a cheaper product/service elsewhere or a more convenient option. In most cases, there is an opportunity to attempt a win-back and secure more sales. If the win-back attempt fails to secure their business, there is a further opportunity to learn from why they left and make improvements/changes to your products/services.

When you are looking to understand why a customer has left, the focus of your interaction should be firmly on relationship building and not sales. At this early stage, gaining an understanding as to why customers have not purchased recently takes priority over a potential sale. In outbound sales, this is best described as an approach of sensitive understanding where you are establishing situations by fact-finding and gaining background information that you can use to inform how you approach the sales stage of the interaction if it progresses to that.

The most successful outbound sales agents draw upon their service skills and approach this stage of the interaction from a customer service perspective. Attempting to rush straight to securing a sale will yield poor results and can even result in the permanent loss of a customer if it is poorly judged.

Switch To Sales And Close The Gap

Following on from the relationship building stage of the interaction where you have established why a customer has not purchased recently and gained useful insight, if appropriate it will be time to switch to the sales stage. By drawing on the insight that you have gained as to why someone has not purchased recently, an appropriately targeted sales approach to the customer can be made.

The sales approach should aim to meet their need and address any issues raised by why they have not recently purchased. For example, if their need has changed, the sales approach should focus on a more suitable product/service rather than trying to re-sell what they may have purchased previously. Whereas, if a customer found a cheaper product/service, the approach might be geared towards selling the benefits of your product/service and highlighting how it is superior to a competitor’s.

Each win-back scenario requires a tailored approach that is best informed by listening to the customer in question. From here the significant issue is using skill and experience to judge when to switch the interaction from relationship building and fact-finding to sales. It is often also necessary to re-establish the desire to buy once you have switched to sales as this may have been lost since the customer acquisition stage. Reminding customers of a product/service’s key features, benefits and outlining how it meets their need is vital.

In order to execute a win-back effectively, your business will need to have skilled outbound sales agents that it can rely on during every win-back interaction. Experienced and empathetic sales agents will outperform those that adopt a strict sales approach as they take time to complete the fact-finding, understand why the customer has not purchased and can then formulate a more tailored sales pitch that incorporates valuable product/service knowledge to secure a sale.