When businesses think about reactivating inactive customers, the first instinct is often: What offer can we send them?
A discount.
A promotion.
A special price.
Sometimes that works.
But it can also cause you to miss the more valuable part of the conversation.
Why did they stop doing business with you?
Maybe their needs changed.
Maybe your service changed.
Maybe an employee handled something poorly.
Maybe a process became inconvenient.
Maybe a competitor simply did something better.
Or perhaps nothing went wrong at all.
You won’t know until somebody asks.
When I began contacting former patients at Sears Optical years ago, the immediate objective was straightforward: we needed appointments.
But those conversations also told me things about the business.
That information mattered.
A former customer isn’t simply someone who might buy again.
They may also know something about your operation that the people still doing business with you have never had a reason to tell you.
That’s why I wouldn’t begin a serious client-reactivation effort with an offer.
I’d begin with a conversation.