• by Neil Rosen , March 12, 2013

Customers are valuable.

We all know that, of course. We work hard, strategize, and spend good money to acquire them. We brainstorm what they might want from our products and services, and then we try to give it to them. We do everything within our creative powers to engage them and keep them engaged.

But what we seem to fail to do is really look at the sales relationship from their point of view; and seeing through the customer’s eyes is, in a large part, what excellent CRM is all about.

The reality is that, no matter how wonderful your retail website, there are a lot of distractions that pull people away from shopping there. The baby starts crying; the office manager strolls in; the telephone rings. There are myriad ways and myriad reasons why customers are pulled away from your website, and more often than not, they don’t return. Life moves on … and you’ve lost both a sale and an opportunity to show to that very harried customer that you care about their time.

An easy way to use what I’m calling “Now Data” to connect and reconnect with your customers is through website and email reengagement solutions. 

Website Reengagement 

This isn’t the same thing as cart abandonment, in which a retailer contacts someone after they’ve placed some items in an online shopping cart and then clicked away from the site; cart abandonment is missing out on the other 95% of visitors who don’t get as far as placing anything in a shopping cart. Useful—but limited.

Real website reengagement is just that: a re-engagement of your customer, an opportunity to show that you noticed what they did on your site and that you’d like to remind them that they might want to come back to it.

What you need to do, obviously, is have a process in place that will identify and then pursue these customers. It’s not just about the extra income (although that doesn’t hurt!); it’s also a necessary component of a robust CRM program. When you communicate with your customer based on the exact content that the person was viewing, you eliminate random messaging and show consideration of your customers in terms of both time and relevancy. 

What you want to do in this case is offer product content based on specific pages the subscriber visited while on the site. The email could read something like, “We saw that you noticed our XYZ; here are a couple more similar styles. And don’t forget this month’s code for free shipping!” It’s important not to offer any markdowns or better deals than can be found on the website, or you’ll train your customers to leave and wait for the follow-up email, but it can be an effective way of reaching those who were interrupted or undecided.

Email Reengagement

Email reengagement does much the same thing as website reengagement: it shows customers that you care about what’s happening in your relationship. We haven’t seen you lately. Last year you ordered XYZ; do you need another this year? 

How do you institute such an email solution? Create rules-based functionality that depends on your specific needs. Typically, companies will:

• send reengagement emails to subscribers who have not made a purchase over the previous two weeks. 
  
  
• send only one reengagement offer per day. 
  
  
• limit reengagement offers to current site offerings (typically a reminder of free shipping or a special code that can be used for a discount on the site). 

How does this connect back to “Now Data”? Because you’re using precisely and only information available to you through your customers’ actions: what they click, when they order, what feedback they provide, what email they open. You’re taking that immediate, live “Now Data,” and responding to it in ways that will reconnect you with your customer no matter where the interaction takes place.

It’s good CRM. And it’s good business, too.