Every month some of your customers quietly stop ordering. Most businesses don’t notice until they’re long gone. PizzaSMARTS gave this group its own program, C-Rescue, named for the C customer: someone who ordered three months ago and hasn’t ordered since.
From the 1997 manual
“Each month a lifeline can be thrown to those customers identified as ‘most likely to secede’. The dollar effectiveness of C-Rescue can be calculated each month by comparing dollar cost with the improved rescue rate.”
Don’t Let Your Lost Customers Get Away, Developing Plan
What C-Rescue did
Every month, every C customer got a satisfaction questionnaire by first-class mail. They could return it for $2 or $3 off their next order, or, if they weren’t interested in ordering, just drop it in the mail. Either way the store learned something. The manual listed four benefits:
- It improves your customer rescue rate.
- It provides you with information from your dissatisfied customers.
- It identifies non-existent addresses that are a result of entry errors.
- Gives the customer the message that you value him as a customer.
The timing is what made it work. A C customer has broken their pattern but isn’t gone yet. One month later, if nothing happens, they become a lost customer and are much harder to win back.
How to do it today
- Set the trigger. Decide what “fading” means for your store. The manual used two straight months with no order. If your regulars order weekly, three or four missed weeks may be the right signal.
- Send it automatically. When a customer crosses the line, an email or text goes out (if they’ve opted in), with a postcard for those who haven’t. No one has to remember to do it.
- Ask before you sell. Lead with a real question: was something wrong with your last order? People who had a bad experience often just need to be asked. Make the answer one tap.
- Make the offer strong. The manual recommended heavy offers for C customers, stronger than anything a regular gets. They’re worth it: some of these customers used to order every week.
- Act on what you hear. Send complaints to the manager. For a former best customer, a personal note from the owner still does more than any coupon.
What to measure: the rescue rate
Of last month’s C customers, what percentage ordered this month? In the manual’s sample store report, the rescue rate was about one in five. Compare the rescue rate to what the program costs each month and you know exactly what it’s worth.
How do you know the rescue program, or any program, actually caused the improvement? The answer is the oldest trick in the binder: mail the odd houses.