LOST CUSTOMERS?

Lost Customer Tally. 

This is a growing topic of conversation.
(Could it be Buyer’s Remorse?)
Workshop owners DON’T always know what their Lost Customer Tally is.

This is something I measure in any business “like a hawk”.  It is something most workshops and marketers have going on in the background… but few can actually give me a number, and even fewer do anything about it. Often, when customers walk-off, it’s thought of only in relation to bad google reviews and customer complaints about the phone. Who on your list is sleeping around with the competitor?

This is a BIG Issue in most businesses and not just Workshops, and it has a real impact on the bottom line. It is something that a business owner should NOT wait to delve into or find out about when there is a slump from one month to the next, downturn in the economy or when car count dwindles to a halt. There is a “number” of customers who buy but never return. The client who stays a while often without notice seems to suddenly and unreasonably leave with their wallet in hand and Business owners have no idea why. Customers are disappointed for a variety of reasons, often they’ll never utter a word. Perhaps they just weren’t wowed enough, for them it was too much sameness. Surveys and consumer opinions can reveal a bunch of actual faults in the products, service, customer care, poor management of customers’ expectations and lousy follow up after the sale. You’ll hear me say this more than once! But hardly anybody ever becomes a customer via one sale. There is the actual sale of the first product or service. Then there is the sale after that particular sale, of satisfaction – hopefully enthusiasm with the purchase just made. If this sale – after – the – sale is absent from your business’s “stickiness system” you ought to look into it and fix it. It is missing from most businesses.

Two weeks ago, I asked a workshop owner who was keen to increase car-count for his workshop to look at WHO hasn’t brought their car back for an extended period of time. To his credit, he did his homework and came back with the lost customer tally of a little over 200 and he went back approximately 2 years to see who had not returned.  Now if you divide 200 by 45 working weeks, that in-turn calculates to around about 4.5 cars per week. At an average work order of $360.00 and let’s say 170 customers come into the workshop twice a year that equates to $122,400 and 30 customers come in once a year that equates $10,800 add those two amounts together that $133,200 of slippage and if it is not halted over a 5 year period that adds up to a large sum of money being left on the table.

Take the time to look at your Lost Customer Tally count in your Business.

Take Care
Mark Selbst