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With an endless number of businesses opening online it’s only natural for online stores to struggle with customer engagement. With a large number of alternatives and choices available while shopping online, customers easily move over from store to store as their interests shift. And for your eCommerce endeavor, that makes for bad business.
Lots of online stores today are seeing only one-time shoppers on their sites, who drop in and out of the store, making a single purchase, never to be seen again. And when businesses fail to up their customer engagement game, this becomes a more common trend. Hence customer retention is as important as customer acquisition, and in some sense, it is becoming more difficult.
The retention rates companies see has hit a drastic turn for the worse and the inability to retain customers doesn’t spell good for your sales either. And luckily, this is a problem that you can work to address and avoid with the help of WhatsApp conversational commerce.
Let’s take a look at how you can re-engage lost customers using the conversational channel.
Who are Lost Customers?
Lost customers are those customers who might have purchased from you in the past but haven’t engaged with your business after that. You could consider a customer as lost if they haven’t engaged with your business in a period of more than 60 or 90 days.
Usually, a business can lose customers due to several reasons.
Maybe they found an alternative site from where they can buy similar products from. Maybe they forgot about your brand after that last purchase they made from you and need something to jog their memory.
Or maybe their experiences with your brand didn’t meet their expectations or maybe the customer service from your part might not have been satisfactory.
Sometimes even the lack of a proper engagement campaign or having a substandard communication system in place can put-off your customers.
The reasons may vary from one business to another and each case needs an appropriate solution. But keep in mind that most of your lost customers are just temporarily lost, not gone. And hence, with the right approach, you can pull them back to you just like that.
This is where you will need to start using WhatsApp to re-engage your lost customers.
WhatsApp marketing is a proven formula when it comes to customer engagement with multiple ways in which you can utilize it to recall lost buyers. We have listed down some of these ways along with WhatsApp business message examples so that you can make the most out of WhatsApp in winning back disengaged customers.
Different Ways to Bring Back Lost Customers Using WhatsApp
Requesting Customer Feedback
If you are out to solve the problem of poor customer engagement, the first and most practical move you can make is to find out what you are doing wrong and where you can improve. This is only possible by communicating with your customer’s since they are the ones consuming and availing your service.
Use WhatsApp to reach out and request feedback from your buyers. Enquire about the overall shopping experiences they had, or any inconveniences they faced. You can also ask for opinions on what they think needs improvement from your part. It is only by creating a good feedback system that you can build a smooth customer relationship, oiling and greasing your business wherever necessary.
Retaining customers largely depends on the dependability and trustworthiness that you showcase towards customers. By engaging customers on WhatsApp, you can utilize the platform’s conversational nature to connect with customers more meaningfully, improving your feedback system in the process.
What this all means is that now you have an opportunity to tell your customers that you are more than just a business, that you actually care about them and value their opinion. Here is an example of how an engaging message on WhatsApp requesting feedback looks-
Sending a “Miss You” Message
On the point of lost customers being only temporarily lost and not completely gone, sometimes a tiny reminder from your brand will be enough to bring them back. We have seen email campaigns where brands send “Miss you” mails to their disengaged customers.
You can do something on similar lines, the only difference being that you will be doing this with WhatsApp.
One of the greatest strengths of WhatsApp marketing is the personality it can attribute into your business with the casual vibe the platform offers. So here, try being cute. It won’t hurt.
Keeping this in mind, you can send a “Miss You” message campaign targeted at customers who haven’t engaged with you for more than 60 days. Try to add a personal tone here (Quirkiness Helps!), and as you jog their memory, you can also subtly remind them of the products you sell. Let the fact that you actually miss them carry forward in the text. Have a look at this message-
Sending a Discount
You’ll never go wrong with discounts when it comes to winning back customers. Customer psychology can be tricky but anyone will be interested to return if you offer discounts that hold value. This strategy always has a tendency to work like a charm.
Everyone loves discounts and with the right offer any customer might be tempted to come back to your store. Be it discounts, sales events or special offers, anywhere where the customer stands to gain will always be the place they’ll go to.
That’s the reason why these campaigns can be trusted to show positive results. Discounts further work for you on two levels; while it raises the chance for regaining lost customers, there also lies a potential sale with each message you send.
Reach out to the people who have not purchased from you or engaged with your brand in a long while with a WhatsApp message containing a special discount. This is also an effective way to not just conduct business but also show customers that you also care about the value you provide to your buyers. An ideal WhatsApp discount message will be short and sweet, the sweetness especially highlighted with numbers. Something like this-
Sending Product Recommendations
This is a clever strategy that dynamically benefits you in two ways. Adding product recommendations to your WhatsApp marketing messages is one way to increase customer engagement. You are not just nudging them to visit your site again, but also creating potential for customers to buy from you right away. Product recommendations can be a key driver in increasing average order value each customer purchases.
According to a survey by Invesp, 49% consumers who received personalized product recommendations have purchased something they initially did not intend to purchase. Not bad at all, eh?
Personalization is key here. Based on the purchase history and the interests that a customer showed the last time he/she visited your store, you can send them a well-tailored WhatsApp product recommendation message. This can include any “similar products'', products that are complementary to their previous purchase, or products that you believe they’ll like based on their previous purchase patterns. Here is a WhatsApp marketing message example along with product recommendations-
Hey {NAME}! Long time no see!
Take a look at this Relaxed Fit Hoodie that will go well with the Mildly Distressed Jeans you bought from us a while back.
Happy Shopping!
Sending a Promotional Broadcast
WhatsApp Business allows for you to send out broadcast messages to multiple people. This is a very handy feature if you are out to get back those customers that haven’t visited your site in a long time. You could send out promotional messages this way as broadcasts, kind of like newsletters on email.
Promotional Messages are basically those messages that contain special offers, coupons for direct discount, special events, festival sales or any other promotional offers that can positively impact sales.
When you send out promotional broadcasts the content has to be relevant and of value to the customer. Give them updates on all the new launches, upcoming sales and special events, ongoing discounts, newly landed goodies, anything and everything that your brand is offering which the customer will find interesting. Try to clearly state the value each message offers to them so as to successfully drive them back to the site.
To sum up, only a well-crafted WhatsApp promotional message can help you engage with buyers more effectively. Take a look at this example-
Hi {NAME},
This Christmas we are offering a 20% discount on all winter-wears.
Merry Christmas!
Running a Contest
Discounts, offers and incentivizing works most of the time but what if you bring in some psychological strategies into the equation. A sense of challenge is a very effective element you can employ in boosting customer engagement. This is why running contests with WhatsApp isn’t such a bad idea.
Engage customers by creatively setting up contests that offer free products and/or more benefits for winners.
Contests are especially effective as it can hook customers to your store by creating the element of challenge and the right dose of excitement, further rendering a psychological appeal to it. Contests show an average conversion rate of 34%, solidifying it to be a tried-and-true marketing strategy to engage customers.
Sometimes creatively combining referral points to the contests can serve multiple purposes. The contests can be as creative as you want it to be, the only rule being that it has to be simple and interesting enough for the customer to take the bait. You can even run a WhatsApp chatbot contest to re-engage lost customers. WhatsApp business API features will be useful for you to set up seamless WhatsApp contests. Here’s a WhatsApp message example that you could use for a contest-
Hey {name},
Great News!
Take part in our Spin-To-Win Contest and stand a chance to get a Flat 50% Off coupon!
Try this right away!
Host a Quiz
Hosting a tiny quiz or questionnaire is an interesting way to engage customers, the key bonus here being that you are able to shape questions that help you understand customers in a more practical way. Automate questions for your lost customers and walk them through the quiz. The questions might be about the products they like, or what kind of service they expect from your brand.
Remember that long and tedious questions requiring long and tedious answers are going to backfire on you. It is important to make your questions crisp and on point. An example of a quiz question you can ask your customers on WhatsApp can be-
Hey there {NAME},
Participate in our quick quiz to get a 20% off on your next purchase.
Answer a few questions about sustainable fashion and win BIG.
Ready?
Get started.
Start a Conversation
Sometimes your customers might have moved off from your brand due to confusion with the buying process. This could happen often and customers might find the shopping guide a little complicated. This should not cost you your sales.
Offer shopping assistance upfront on WhatsApp, so that you can guide them through the purchase funnel without hassle. Offering assistance doesn’t have to stop at that. Customers might need your pointers in a lot of ways and reaching out to enquire about their problems is an important way to showcase brand integrity to your customers. Here is an example-
Dear Customer,
You haven’t visited our website in a while.
Please feel free to reply to us with any problem you might have faced while shopping and we will be happy to help.
Thank you!
Don’t Lose Disengaged Customers
Like we have already said, lost or disengaged customers might seem like they are lost forever, but this is not true. Disengaged customers only need something to engage them. You just need the right approach to win them back. Knowing what appeals to their interests as well as where you can improve when it comes to driving customer engagement is a start.
You can re-engage customers with a well-planned campaign, reaching out to them strategically. And having a conversational and simple platform to do this can significantly influence the end results. This is precisely where WhatsApp marketing shines. WhatsApp provides you with that direct and more personal line of communication to reach your customers. And having the right WhatsApp solution provider can only enhance your campaigns.
FAQ's
Q1 How can Whatsapp marketing help to re-engage lost customers?
Ans: WhatsApp marketing is one of the most powerful tools available to businesses today, and it's perfect for re-engaging lost customers. It allows businesses to create conversations around products or services that they offer—and because these conversations happen directly through the app itself, they don't require any additional time or effort on behalf of the business owner or marketer themselves!‍
Q2 Is WhatsApp an eCommerce platform?
Ans: In 2019, the Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp introduced a new shopping button on 'WhatsApp Business' that allows users to browse a business catalog. This feature allows users to see a storefront icon right next to the business's name.‍
Q3 Do WhatsApp advertisements work?
Ans: It is incredibly successful to immediately interact with leads on WhatsApp and sell to them. This conversational type of business builds on the following: 87% of smartphone users worldwide use Whatsapp Messaging. Facebook products exchange 100 billion messages daily.
Set up strategic and effective campaigns with the help of WhatsApp Business API using QuickReply.ai.
Frequently Asked Questions
