Contacting a past customer

[Bobjob]

There is a company that used to purchase from me monthly and I haven't heard from them in about seven months. What are y'alls thoughts on me contacting them and asking why? Thanks.

[Harold Mansfield]

I check in on past customers all of the time. Why not? Sometimes it leads to new business.

[Fulcrum]

Go for it. Only way to find out why they left is to ask.

[Business Attorney]

Absolutely. A call can yield one of several results. The best result is that you trigger an order that might have been going someplace else. But if as Brad said, they are a lost customer, then finding out why they left may help you keep the next customer from leaving.

[Brian Altenhofel]

Definitely. If you don't know why they left, you don't know what you need to fix (if you even need to fix anything). Sometimes, it can be a good thing that a customer left - you can't meet everyone's needs. It could even be as simple as the person previously placing the orders moved on to another company and their replacement did not know you existed. Quite often, business connections tend to follow individuals from company to company.

If your business is about repeat orders, then you should be tracking their order trends and perhaps even their usage of your website. If a customer who normally places regular orders slows down or stop altogether, always attempt to find out why. With enough data, you can probably start to identify other customers who may be at risk of leaving and take corrective action before the thought of leaving even enters their mind.

[KristineS]

Why wouldn't you call them. If things didn't end on a bad note and, as far as you know anyway, there's no reason why they've stopped ordering, I don't think there's anything out of bounds about calling to say Hi and asking why they haven't placed an order in a while. I'd just frame it as a check in call, that you were just calling because they haven't ordered in a while and you wanted to make sure past interactions were to their satisfaction and see if there was anything you could currently help with.

[Bobjob]

We decided to call them and touch base. We got held up with work and family, and before we called them they called us and placed an order. We talked to the lady who called us about not hearing from them, but she wasn't divulging any information.

[KristineS]

We decided to call them and touch base. We got held up with work and family, and before we called them they called us and placed an order. We talked to the lady who called us about not hearing from them, but she wasn't divulging any information.

Good that they placed another order. Not unusual that they wouldn't tell you why there was a lag in ordering. Could be they tried someone else and it didn't work out and they don't want to admit that. Or maybe the person who placed the order has no idea why they hadn't ordered in a while. Oftentimes the people who place the orders aren't the ones who make the decisions.