Every day you work hard to get your sales, but sometimes it seems an uphill battle. You put promotions on Instagram, post new pictures of your hair on Facebook together with the best bundle deals as possible, but your sales have been better.
A few months ago, business was doing better, and you check your orders from last year, you see the names of clients who bought twice or even more times with you, but they did not buy anymore the last months? What has happened and how can you get back lost clients?
First of all, some statistics about the importance of existing clients; research shows:
·There is a 2 out of 3 chance a client who bought from you will buy again;
·You can win back up 2 out of 5 lost clients
·You need 5 new prospects to turn one into a client
What can you do?
1. Make a client profile
Every time you look for clients, you first need to know what clients you want to service. Focus your marketing effort. You can get better margins if you focus on a certain segment of clients instead of selling everything to everybody, unless you want to compete with Amazon.
So if you did not draw a profile of your target client yet ,than this is the time. Use this also to check if your lost clients did fit in this profile. If they do not, no need to approach them, but make sure they are happy about their last contacts with your business, because they can still refer business to your hair shop.
2. Ask them why they left
It is difficult to make your clients happy, if you do not know what made them unhappy. Why did they decide to turn their back on you? Take your client list and identify why clients turned away from your business. Perhaps there was a dispute about the hair or any other reason, perhaps they wanted more discount. And if you do not know, ask them. Contact them and use a special VIP offer to get at least their attention to respond to your question. Perhaps they will not return, but the information they will share will be very important, because it will tell you what a client needs to…. decide to leave you.
How?
Because you know a lot about this clients, you can target them in a very personal manner. You know where they are located, what they like, perhaps you have some additional information you can find if you do some analyses on the internet. Now write a personal letter, yes, with pen and paper! This will avoid you land up in the spamming folder, or will not be read because your email was not noticed between all the daily emails your lost client receives.
In your letter tell them how much you value them and let them know you are going to contact them the next week. If you mention a link to a special landing page on your website, you will be able to see how they feel about your offer. Make sure you mention you miss them and include a special offer, for example a gift card. If you can, try different offers, just to see what works the best.
But.. perhaps they had a very bad experience with your company, so will they open your envelope, just enclose something in the envelope. A card or pen, or anything to make people curious enough to open the envelope. It works!
3. The market is always right
If you have a good idea of what did your clients decide to turn away, check your current product and service offering. Where can you adjust your offer to an offer your clients like? You know your clients are always right, so if you think it is reasonable to charge for shipping, or not to accept returns of hair, if the market does not want to see a shipping charge, you have to adjust your offer.
But do not forget you mission as mentioned in your business plan, what is the reason you are in business and what is the promise you made to your clients? If you want a stable brand and not become a discounter, if you’re the clients you lost only wanted lower price, there is no use of adapting your offer. Stay within your plan.
4. Admit you did wrong
Okay, you drive your business with passion and expertise, but even you can make mistakes. Tell your client you are sorry and fix the problem, even if this will not lead to a new order, The hair business is all about the experience of looking and feeling good. So make sure, every client feels good about the hair, the service and you! If they will not buy from you anymore, great chance they will still refer you to their friends if you treated them fair after a mistake.
5. Keep them warm
Perhaps they do not want to buy from you today, but they are in the market to buy hair, so one day, if they do not find what they are looking for in other shops, they might turn their face and interest to your hair business again. So make sure they know about you and do remember you.
Here a newsletter comes of use; you already offer a newsletter to your existing clientele, where you share great offers, new introductions and other news. Create a new list or segment for clients that turned their back to you, or prospects that did not turn into a client.
It is important to first win back their trust. So do not try to sell with this special list, because you know the readers of this special newsletter are not interested in buying from you. There is a big chance they will not read or unsubscribe from your newsletter, once the only receive information about new deals.
But keep them warm; let them know you care about them. Because you know they are interested in hair and beauty, so share news about this. If there is a special event, if new techniques are on the market or new product offerings, mention it. You know it is not needed to promote your hair business because they already know about you.
By doing so, you will stay in their mind, and one day… they will get back to you because they know you.
6. The golden rules about –lost- clients
There are three golden rules you always should keep in mind and action, because is it better to avoid clients to turn their back to your business the first place. So when dealing with clients:
-Make sure you take their complaints serious
-Be careful if you change the strategy of your company, explain why you as of now only sell Indian hair for example
-Never, never take a client for granted! Always put your customer first, second but never as last!
