The silence can be deafening. Every company may deal with crickets, but not every company deals with them effectively. You should have plans for addressing the hush that is as solid as those addressing the hustle.
How to Win Back Customers Who Are Ghosting You
Here are four ways to win back customers who are ghosting you.
1. Reach Out to Those Who’ve Gone Quiet
Customers abandon you all the time for whatever reason. Maybe they don’t like what you’re selling, they’ve decided they don’t need it, or they found a better deal. Or perhaps they aren’t sure they trust your brand. It’s tempting to want to wash your hands of them and put your energy into finding new ones. But you may want instead to reach out to those who seemingly abandoned the ship. Why waste the apparent success of efforts you made to attract their attention in the first place? Develop retention marketing strategies that keep customers at the top of the funnel from spilling out over the edge. Schedule routine and ongoing contact whether they’re still talking to you or not. Capitalize on information gleaned from first- and third-party cookies to keep the lines of communication open. When customers start reaching back, you’ll be glad you did what you could to pull them back into that funnel.
2. Address the Root Cause
If you have a thousand customers ghosting you, there could be a thousand reasons why. It may not be you, but them. On the other hand, it may or may not have anything to do with what you’re trying to sell. To win back customers who are ghosting you, you need to know why they’re doing so. Begin with looking at where customers were in the funnel when they went silent. It’s likely that the reasons for those just entering and those who went much deeper will be quite different. Check any lapse in your follow-up or see whether there’s any reason why they might have lost trust in you. Review communication to see whether you’ve been too pushy rather than just assertive. If you aren’t seeing anything obvious, maybe they’re just too busy or not interested right now. Once you develop a hypothesis on the cause, reach out with communication that addresses it. If they abandoned you right before checkout, perhaps they found the shipping cost too high. Offering free or discounted shipping could win them back or at least put yourself back on their radar.
3. Ratchet Up the Transparency
Ghosts are reputed to be transparent. How about the way you have talked about your brand? Have you been transparent? Customers who perceive you haven’t been upfront about your products, services, and data privacy are likely to ghost you. Take a good, hard look to see if you are, indeed, delivering what you promised. Read your reviews closely and look for patterns of discontent. Own up to failures and use your communication channels to confess them. Then, revise your website, social media, and other marketing tools, so you set realistic expectations that are less likely to disappoint. In this case, transparency doesn’t mean lacking substance. Make sure you aren’t being ghosted because you aren’t who and what you say you are. If you claim to be something you’re not, customers will see right through you.
4. Improve Lead Qualification
Some customers just aren’t a good match for you from the get-go. Maybe a special offer, free gift, or other incentive brought them in the door and even resulted in a sale. But you probably haven’t created loyal customers of those who really aren’t picking up what you’re laying down. If you’re simply filling your upper funnel until it overflows, don’t be surprised when a lot of customers subsequently disappear. Invest more time in defining your target audience and focusing on reaching people in it. Don’t spend scarce marketing resources on trying to attract anyone and everyone. Understand, too, that there will be differences among customers in your target audience that you need to address. They may share the same problem your brand will solve, but they may have different budgets or timelines. Try to win them back by offering a payment plan or extending the deadline for a special offer. The quality of your customers is key here, not the quantity. Increasing the number of qualified customers you have, then responding to their differences will decrease the likelihood that they’ll ghost you later. That’s a lead you will want to follow.
Recoup Your Group
As with every effort you make to create loyal customers, communication is critical to breathing life into your ghosts. Figure out what’s wrong and confront the issue. Just remember to appeal to your lapsed customers’ emotions without exhibiting emotions like impatience or resentment. It’s true that silence can be uncomfortable and deafening rather than golden. Don’t be afraid to speak up. Just do so in a way that won’t scare off customers who could be forever friendly to your brand.
