7 Tools for Re-activating Dormant Customers

The cost of acquiring a new customer is five times higher than the cost to keep an existing one, which is one of the reasons why businesses of all sizes are beefing up their loyalty programs and using social media to keep fans engaged. But what about customers who’ve fallen off the bandwagon — those whose accounts have gone dormant after not coming in for a period of weeks or months?

Hyperlocal vendors are doing their part to help merchants reactivate those dormant shoppers, with tools designed to pinpoint customers who haven’t been in and then re-engage those customers with targeted messages and promotions. Here are seven examples of hyperlocal vendors that offer tools for reactivating lapsed customers.

1. FiveStars: Automate customer retention tasks.
For merchants who don’t have the time to manually reach out to every dormant guest, FiveStars has created “AutoPilot” features that combine customer loyalty and behaviors into email and text marketing promotions. Once a customer has signed up for a merchant’s rewards program through the POS, FiveStars begins automatically sending messages and rewards on behalf of businesses who’ve signed up for AutoPilot features. These messages are sent out at specific times based on the merchant’s ultimate goals. (For example, merchants can create lapsed customer campaigns or at-risk campaigns.) The results of these campaigns are sent directly to the merchant’s inbox.

2. TabbedOut: Connect with lapsed customer through a POS.
Designed for merchants in the hospitality industry, TabbedOut is a mobile POS solution that captures guest history information and distributes it to businesses without requiring any additional hardware or add-ons. Merchants can segment their customer bases to find lapsed customers, and then target those lapsed customers based on how frequently they visited in the past or how long it has been since they came in. Any offers that a merchant sends out are redeemed and calculated from within TabbedOut’s platform, which gives businesses a complete view of how their marketing strategies are working.

3. MyAds: Re-engage customers outside the retargeting window.
MyAds is a “lifecycle display ad solution” for retailers, developed by MyBuys. The vendor offers features for customer acquisition, retargeting, and reactivation. Recent website visitors who’ve abandoned a website are shown optimized personalized display ads to bring them back to the site (where they’ll hopefully complete their transactions). Meanwhile, “dormant shoppers” are shown personalized adds intended to turn them back into loyal customers. Businesses can use MyAds in conjunction with MyMail, another product from MyBuys, to send triggered email alerts, as well.

4. Swipely: Launch targeted campaigns to reach dormant customers.
Merchants who are interested in customer analytics but unwilling to abandon their existing POS systems can utilize Swipely to collect identifiable transaction data for customers. Within the dashboard, businesses can see the date of each customer’s last visit, and they can drill down to find spending histories and preferences. Using this information, a spa could create a list of any customers who haven’t been in for 90 days. This list could be segmented to only include those customers who’ve had facials, for example, and the owner could send these dormant customers a coupon for 20%-off facials to get them back through the door.

5. Front Flip: Use gifts and discounts to re-engage former customers.
Rather than tracking lapsed customers through the POS, Front Flip takes a different approach and utilizes an online loyalty program. Once they’ve used Front Flip to build their customer databases, merchants can monitor customer visits and reward redemptions. Businesses are able win back guests they haven’t seen for 30, 60, or 90 days by sending personalized mobile offers. These offers can be integrated into existing social, email, and print campaigns. Businesses can also send promotions to customers on their birthdays, which helps promote awareness among dormant guests.

6. LevelUp: Engage any customers who haven’t been in for one month.
LevelUp is a mobile payment network that provides participating businesses with troves of customer data. Through the Insights tab on the LevelUp dashboard, merchants can see the names of their customers and the number of times they’ve visited. They can also see the date of each customer’s last visit, and the average number of days between visits. Using this information, businesses can engage customers who’ve visited specific store locations in the past, but haven’t been back for a pre-determined number of days. Customer retention campaigns may then be implemented to incentivize repeat visits.

7. Windsor Circle: Automate the retention marketing process.
Windsor Circle is a retention automation platform that provides merchants with a way to recover and retain their most valuable customers. Built primarily for ecommerce businesses, Windsor Circle sends well-timed email messages to customers who’ve abandoned their carts. The company says that roughly 2% of customers who receive these messages will end up following through on their purchases. Merchants are also able to create multiple recover email templates, depending on their store configurations, with messages that are optimized for mobile viewing.

Stephanie Miles is a senior editor at Street Fight.