318: How Important Is the CX of Former Customers?

Jeannie Walters CCXP shares expert tips for engaging former customers and insights on how to treat those who are leaving you. How can your brand flourish by focusing on these parts of the journey? Do you choose to have former customers, or lifetime friends? We’ve mentioned before on this show that the true customer journey extends well beyond the actual time they spend as customers, from the time they realize they need your product or service to when they leave you and beyond. So, have you ever considered the experience of former customers? It’s more important than you think! “We need to rethink not only what it means to lose a customer, but how to win them back.” -Jeannie Walters CCXP Too often, brands think of former customers as “lost prospects” they’ll never hear from again. But even when they know there’s a chance to win them back, marketing campaigns are sent offering special deals but don’t properly acknowledge the existing relationship. Simply put, treating former customers like strangers and enticing them with new customer rewards when they know the reality of an ongoing relationship with you is no way to win them back. “At any phase throughout the journey, a customer can leave you.” -Jeannie Walters CCXP In fact, those who’ve left for neutral reasons, such as simply no longer needing your product or service, will now have a negative impression they’ll share with friends. After all, how does it make you feel when someone you’ve given your money to acts like you’ve never met before? If you want to create positive word of mouth for your brand while keeping the door open for former customers, you must think beyond the numbers you see now and consider how what you do today paves the way for the future. That said, you need to think about how you’ll create the ideal experience for your former customers and think of this phase as a vital part of their journey. "The numbers respond in a positive way when you treat those exiting in a positive way as well.” -Jeannie Walters But how can you do that? We’ve got you covered! In this episode, Jeannie Walters CCXP explores what typically goes wrong when brands try to hang onto exiting customers or win them back. But Jeannie isn’t just here to tell you what you’re doing wrong! She has expert tips to help you develop a better strategy for engaging former customers in ways that inspire them to act as loyalists and advocates – even if they never come back. Jeannie has 3 important questions to ask yourself. And if you answer them honestly, then you’ll have a much clearer picture of the ideal former customer journey and how to maintain valuable relationships that lead to referrals, return customers, and a more positive brand image overall. Listen in to get started! Related Content 360Connext® post, 5 Ways to Engage and Understand At-Risk Customers Customers That Stick® post, How to Calculate Customer Retention Rate Episode 115: Do Loyalty Programs Still Work? Episode 167: Signs You’re Losing a Customer We're on C-Suite Radio! Check it out for more great podcasts   Sponsor message Give your team the customer service training they deserve Want to bring game-changing customer service training to your team? CTS Service Solutions offers a half-day in-person workshop designed to motivate and educate your customer-facing team members. Using energy, excitement, and interaction, our workshop helps frontline teams embrace a customer-centric outlook, then — using the principles from our book Be Your Customer’s Hero — gives them the skills and confidence they need to handle any service interaction. Don’t leave your frontline team hanging… Give them the training they deserve. Learn more at customerheroworkshop.com, that is customerheroworkshop.com.   Take care of yourself and take care of your customers.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices