How to Win Back Lost Buyers and Generate More B2B Sales

What's your B2B company's buyer retention rate? Not all buyers will stay with your B2B company indefinitely. Some of them will inevitably leave in favor of a competitor's product or service.

For more sales, you should consider optimizing your B2B company's operations for a higher buyer retention rate. A report published by HubSpot found that a 5% increase in customer retention results in a 25% increase in profits. You can still attract new buyers, but selling to existing buyers is oftentimes cheaper and easier. If your B2B2 company is constantly losing its existing buyers, though, you'll need to win them back.

Reconnect With a Follow-Up Email

Sending a follow-up email to lost buyers may encourage them to return to your B2B company. In the B2B industry, buyers typically make regular purchases. They may purchase a specific product or service once every few months like clockwise. If a buyer abruptly stops -- and you haven't otherwise heard from the buyer -- you should reconnect with him or her by sending a follow-up email.

Avoid making the follow-up email too formal. Instead, keep it somewhat conversational. You can tell the buyer that you haven't heard from him or her in a while and just wanted to touch base. Buyers will feel reassured knowing that you are looking out for them. As a result, they may respond to a follow-up email while continuing to purchase your B2B company's products or services.

Find Out Why They Left

To win back lost buyers, you need to find out why they left. Only after correcting an underlying problem or issue will the buyer return to your B2B company. Buyers, of course, may leave for any number of reasons. If a buyer believes the price of a product or service is too expensive, he or she may leave. High pricing is one of the most common reasons buyers leave.

Buyers may also leave your B2B company after a negative customer service experience. It takes more than a high-quality product or service at the right price to retain buyers; retaining buyers requires excellent customer service. Neglecting to respond to buyers' questions in a timely manner or otherwise treating them poorly may result in them leaving your B2B company.

For better customer service that brings buyers back to your B2B company, consider the following tips:

• Offer a personalized, rather than a generic, experience that's custom-tailored to each buyer.
• Respond to buyers' questions and concerns as soon as possible.
• Touch base with buyers after their purchase to see if they need any assistance.
• Offer multiple customer service channels, such as email, phone, social media and live chat.
• Go beyond buyers' expectations by overdelivering on their orders.
• Conduct feedback surveys to identify pain points in the buyer's journey.

Provide Demos of New Products

Another tip to win back lost buyers is to provide them with demos of new products. Demos provide insight into how products work. While buyers might be familiar with your B2B company's existing products, they probably won't know much about your B2B company's new products. By providing demos, you can introduce them to these new products.

You can go one step further by providing lost buyers with personalized product demos. A personalized product demo will reveal the benefits of using a product for a given buyer's business. Whether personalized or unpersonalized, though, demos of new products can help your B2B company win back lost buyers.

Verify Contact Information

Make sure the contact information you have on file for buyers is accurate and up to date. You can't expect to win back a lost buyer unless you know his or her contact information. Buyers' contact information can change. Maybe a buyer changed his or her phone number, or perhaps a buyer changes his or her email address. Verifying the contact information of a lost buyer will give you the opportunity to win them back. You can only win back lost buyers if you know their contact information.

You can verify buyers' contact information in a follow-up email. If a buyer doesn't respond to the follow-up email, it's safe to assume his or her contact information is incorrect. As a result, you'll need to find the correct contact information for the buyer. Only then will you be able to bring the buyer back to your B2B company.

Offer a Returning Discount

To win back lost buyers, consider offering a returning discount. A returning discount is exactly what it sounds like: a discount on products or services that's given to returning buyers. You can offer a returning discount of 5% to 20%, for instance. When a lost buyer returns, he or she can redeem this discount to save money on the purchase of a product or service.

A returning discount is an incentive. It encourages lost buyers to come back by rewarding them with cost-savings benefits. As previously mentioned, pricing is one of the most common reasons why buyers leave. With a returning discount, you can overcome this objection while incentivizing buyers to come back to your B2B company. Your B2B company may incur costs associated with the discount itself, but it's a small price to pay to win back lost buyers.

Target Other Decision-Makers

Just because a buyer has left your B2B company, there may not be anything wrong with your B2B company's products or services. Rather, the buyer may no longer have the authority to make purchase decisions. Buyers in the B2B industry are decision-makers. They typically consist of C-suite executives and business owners. Job positions, however, can change. If a buyer moves from a C-suite position to another job position, he or she may lose the authority to make purchase decisions.

If you believe a buyer no longer has the authority to make purchase decisions, try targeting another decision-marker at the same business. Identifying decision-makers is typically easy. You can look on the business's official website or its LinkedIn Company Page in search of C-suite executives. C-suite executives are almost always decision-makers. Therefore, you can target them with your marketing and sales messages.

What's Next?

If you need help  reaching out to past purchasers, let us know. SalesLeads' Prospecting Services can help you reach out and get interest going again. It's a great way to fill the funnel and make some old connections new again.