Win Back?? Does It Mean They Have Already Lost

“Win Back” has become a commonplace term in business today. The phone companies, who have consumers use their services for 100 years, and had no real reason to proactively try to keep them since they had no real alternatives, have been coining the phrase “Win Back” in a big way. This has more to do with the competitive landscape than anything else. After all if you can not lose them why worry about winning them back.

The phone companies are not the only service providers that are embracing the term “Win Back”. You see it with automobile dealers, airlines, retail stores. Just about any entity that has lost sight of what it takes to win and keep a customer has introduced some type of “Win Back” program. Now it is important to realize that these are not “Customer Retention” or “Customer Loyalty” programs.

“Win Back” is different. This suggests you have lost the customer. That begs the huge question WHY. What I have found mystifying over 30 years of sales, marketing, and business development experience is that somehow there is a large group of executive managers out there that truly believes it is much more critical to bring in “New” customers than it is to Retain “Existing” Customers.

The sad part about this is that the philosophy comes from the people who should know better. CEOs, Finance Executives, Investors (not the general public who owns stock, but the VCs, the Angels) and some other stakeholders who should clearly understand the old proverb of “A bird in hand is better than two in the bush.”

Let’s just talk pure economics. Every new customer will cost hundreds of dollars, and in some highly competitive businesses thousands of dollars to attract and close. Existing customers require excellent service, and just a little bit of hand holding when they have a problem. And sometimes the amount of effort you put into that hand holding might cost you hundreds of dollars, but you have already extracted a sizable profit, and the hand holding is really an investment in extracting more sizable profits. The return on investment for keeping an existing customer is a no-brainer!! Isn’t it??

Let me give you an example. There was a situation where I had a problem with my bill, and I reached out to the customer services team to get a resolution. I personally have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get resolution to billing issues and in this one instance explained to the customer service rep I would cancel the service over a $20 charge. They politely told me there was nothing they could do for me and that there was no supervisor available for me to speak with. They wished me luck and sent me on my way. (Believe me this really happened). In this particular case I knew an executive at the company, and called to ask them if they wanted to let me leave over such a small amount. Within 24 hours I was contacted by a senior executive from Customer Service and not only was the $20 charge forgiven there was an additional $200 of back billing which I was not claiming that they forgave as well. There are thousands of these cases every day where there is no mechanism in place to save the customer, and thus they become part of a very expensive “Win Back” program. Or even more hysterical management uses the focus on gaining new customers as some kind of remedy for losing previously loyal ones.

I could go on and on about situations where I did go through with a cancellation only to get a call or letter inviting me back with an array of incentives that just do not make sense. If we spend the time and energy to empower our employees (and yes they better be up to the job) and make managers accountable for losing customers then we will have a significantly more profitable organization, and with the lower churn will magically have more “Customer Loyalty”
Please feel free to share some examples of how you became a “Win Back” statistic, or like me were saved before you left the fold. It is not that important who the company is as much as it is important that we share ideas on how important it is (if you think it is) to create a culture of maintaining long term relationships with customers, and developing a culture that supports that