Skip to content
Tweak Your Biz home.
MENUMENU
  • Home
  • Categories
    • Reviews
    • Business
    • Finance
    • Technology
    • Growth
    • Sales
    • Marketing
    • Management
  • Who We Are

6 Effective Ways to Win Back Old Customers

By Megan Wright Published December 4, 2015 Updated March 17, 2023

Customer retention, happiness and loyalty make strong business (and steady income) no matter your industry, but what happens when customers change their mind and make an exit?

Customer loss often happens with a whimper, not a bang, and for many reasons–customers may decide to forgo your services because they don’t feel “wowed” by you. They may simply find a competitor that’s cheaper or closer, or perhaps they had a bad experience and bolted. Maybe they just haven’t needed your services in a while, your card got lost, or their SPAM filter weeded you out of their inbox.

Whatever the reason for leaving, one thing is for sure—customer loss has a profound effect on your reputation, and ultimately your bottom line. You may not even notice until you’ve sustained significant damage. Don’t give up! There are ways to win back customers, and hang onto them in the future!

#1. Find the reason they left

It sounds simple, right? Find the reason your customers left, address it, and fix it. However, most of us don’t have a fat market research budget, and getting down to the nitty gritty and psychology of customer loss can be a challenge.

Your best bet? If you know a formerly loyal customer or client has gone AWOL, pick up the phone and call. Reserve this tactic for your large customers, particularly those you shared a personal connection with.

Put their favorite sales rep, a manager or even the CEO on the line, and ask the question—Why? It may lead to surprising discoveries, a problem that you can easily remedy or smooth over, or even just remind the customer how much they loved you.

#2. Snail mail

Direct mail may seem like a hassle, a dated solution…and frankly, a pain. In these days of lightning speed correspondence, e-mail marketing is the norm. Taking the time to reach out to a customer with a card, postcard or even something more personal can set you apart from the competition and can give you an edge in a number of scenarios. A letter to some key former customers, or a postcard to a group of lapsed clients can make a connection in a personal way that cluttering their inbox just won’t.

Planning and executing direct mail campaigns can be time consuming, but it will get you past an overactive SPAM filter, or earn the attention of a customer who’s been clicking delete on your emails without reading them. Present your message on something eye-catching—an official, professional looking letter; a flashy fun and edgy postcard; or a colorful envelope that they can’t quite ignore. In the worst case scenario, you get five seconds to get your message across before it hits the trash – more than can be said for unopened email.

#3. Do your research

If customers are leaving en masse (as opposed to a few single, key-clients), it may be time to roll up your sleeves and do some research. It’s simply not feasible to call or send personal letters to 5000 lapsed customers, but sending out a short survey may give you the answers you are looking for.

Doing customer research has a two-pronged effect on your loyalty efforts: 1. It tells you what you need to improve and 2. It reminds customers that you exist (and you have noticed their absence).

Often the latter is all it takes to win them back, especially if they left or lapsed because they lost interest. In some cases, your customers might not even think of themselves as lapsed! Reach out with a quick poll, and a little incentive, and you may find them walking right back through your door.

#4. Keep tabs on them

In a survey done by the Griffin Group on Marketing Retention, 71% of marketing and sales executives said they had no process for identifying customers who had defected. When customers vanish without a trace or thought, money disappears from your business.

Just a 5% increase in customer retention can increase a company’s profitability by 75%, but you must have a system in place to manage your customers and give you a full picture of your connection. Having a CRM product that keeps customer’s information at your fingertips, tracks contacts, sales and other vital stats gives you the full view of your customer relationship…and the ability to right the ship before it starts to go down.

#5. Prioritize

With limited time and budget to consider, it becomes necessary to prioritize your customers. A repeat contact that has given you business for years is a much greater loss than a client who’s simply dipping her toe in the water with a single sale. If you can only go after a few lapsed customers, pick from the top. If the unthinkable happens and you lose your biggest customer, don’t panic. Assess, plan and do some damage control.

Hopefully you have a diverse enough customer base to solidify your working relationships and build on your reputation. Continue to court existing clients and ensure they are happy, and then set to work at how you can win back your loss (or make up the difference). Forging a strong, candid relationship with your clients can help you reroute and rebuild, should it become necessary.

#6. Dangle a carrot

Don’t underestimate the appeal of a shiny discount. It can feel a bit painful at first glance to say, eat shipping costs on a mistake, or knock of 5% when it cuts out commission…but the benefit can return in spades. Customers remember everything you did to right a wrong or fix a mistake, and the effort is the thing that will wow them. Consider stellar customer service a long-term investment in your relationship.

Offering other perks, like multiple shipping or payment options, can be another way to drive sales and bring back your customers. Going the extra mile breeds allegiance and repeat business. A few small changes can help you be certain that your customers are coming back and staying put!

Images “CUSTOMER word cloud, business concept/  Shutterstock.com“

________________________________________________________________________________

Tweak Your Biz is a thought leader global publication and online business community. Today, it is part of the Small Biz Trends stable of websites and receives over 300,000 unique views per month. Would you like to write for us?

An outstanding title can increase tweets, Facebook Likes, and visitor traffic by 50% or more. Generate great titles for your articles and blog posts with the Tweak Your Biz Title Generator.

Posted in Marketing

Enjoy the article? Share it:

  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on X
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Email

Megan Wright

Megan Wright is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. Chamber specializes in helping small businesses grow their business on the web while facilitating the connectivity between local businesses and more than 7,000 Chambers of Commerce worldwide.

As a small business expert, Megan specializes in reporting the latest business news, helpful tips and reliable resources, as well as providing small business advice. She has significant experience with the topic of small business marketing, and has spent several years exploring topics like copywriting, content marketing and social media.

When she’s not publishing a weekly newsletter to educate small businesses on the vast importance of building up their web presence, she likes to keep her finger on the pulse of the latest small business products, services, apps and other reviews. She also keeps tabs on the foremost events for small business owners to attend.

Megan spends much of her time building partnerships and establishing new relationships on behalf of ChamberofCommerce.com. With a strong suit for managing business partnerships and developing partner relations, she often cultivates topics around the partnerships she’s established by reviewing and highlighting what makes each business unique. She prides herself on keeping up with the diverse variety of services each business specializes in to spotlight new offerings.

With her extensive repertoire, Megan regularly contributes to a growing number of publications, like Business.com, Disability.gov, Vistaprint, Yext, Infusionsoft, among many others. She can be reached at [email protected].

Contact author via email

View all posts by Megan Wright

Signup for the newsletter

Sign For Our Newsletter To Get Actionable Business Advice

* indicates required
Contents
#1. Find the reason they left
#2. Snail mail
#3. Do your research
#4. Keep tabs on them
#5. Prioritize
#6. Dangle a carrot

Related Articles

Marketing
Technology

Show Up in AI Overviews with Yelp SEO

James Harding August 7, 2025
Business
Marketing

5 Key Marketing Lessons B2B Brands Can Learn From D2C Marketers

Garrett Smith July 30, 2025
Marketing

How to Use Coupons Effectively in Your Marketing Strategy?

Chad Wyatt July 9, 2025

Footer

Tweak Your Biz
Visit us on Facebook Visit us on X Visit us on LinkedIn

Privacy Settings

Company

  • Contact
  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Statement
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Sitemap

Signup for the newsletter

Sign For Our Newsletter To Get Actionable Business Advice

* indicates required

Copyright © 2025. All rights reserved. Tweak Your Biz.

Disclaimer: If you click on some of the links throughout our website and decide to make a purchase, Tweak Your Biz may receive compensation. These are products that we have used ourselves and recommend wholeheartedly. Please note that this site is for entertainment purposes only and is not intended to provide financial advice. You can read our complete disclosure statement regarding affiliates in our privacy policy. Cookie Policy.

Tweak Your Biz
Sign For Our Newsletter To Get Actionable Business Advice
[email protected]