Using Data to Welcome Back Lapsed Customers and Increase Customer Retention

Loyal customers account for only 20% of total customers, but are drivers for 80% of revenue - and customer retention is certainly less expensive than bringing on new customers.

With that in mind, we look at how Ticketsolve can help you identify lapsed customers and welcome them back. Customer loyalty and retention is a hot topic regardless of industry.

But for arts, festivals and theatres, where funding it is getting squeezed day by day - it is critical to retain customers as much as possible. There are two strands to retention in this sense - how do we keep customers coming back in the first place and how to we draw back lapsed customers?

Keep Customers Coming Back for More

In order to keep customers coming back, we need to create targeted, behaviour driven campaigns that attract them. That is, post purchase messages that drive conversions. If you use Ticketsolve, then you know you the system helps to collect vital patron data that you can use to create targeted post purchase campaigns.

Ticketsolve is integrated with MailChimp, which means all campaigns can be tracked, from opens to click throughs to purchase, so you can see how your post purchase campaigns are doing. Ideally your ticketing system should let you create these retention points earlier - and then carry through to post purchase.

So for example, within Ticketsolve, features such as recommendations and cross selling allow you to offer show recommendations based on the purchase, or add ons such as drinks or meals.

These sorts of smart features are no longer a nice to have. Patrons have begun to expect these recommendations and appreciate the idea that you are offering suggestions they may be interested in.

Still, even with the best recommendations in the world, some customers will lapse. Using data, we can look at re-engaging these customers.

Purchase Frequency

First, we need to determine what the average time is between purchases. Now this may be tricky depending on the buying patterns of your patrons. Do they tend to buy for the season or do they buy more ad hoc? Do you see a spike in purchasing right after a show - for other shows?

Average purchase frequency can give you a sense of when a customer is "lapsed". So if it is 11 months between purchases for your patrons, those who fall outside of these parameters can get a targeted message. You may want to also consider splitting the groups here further.

Repeat customers may have a shorter time frame between purchases, than new customers Are there any repeat customers who then become lapsed? In this way you can now determine, with data, specific times to send messages.

RFM Analysis

Now what about recency, frequency and monetary analysis of customers? This is really interesting information to understand total number of purchases and the total lifetime purchases per customer. This gives an even deeper view into lapsed customers and their behaviours.

Perhaps you have customers who buy infrequently, but buy a lot - they are not necessarily lapsed, but just purchase differently. Still other patrons bought a lot once, but haven't bought since. Each of these types of patrons can be identified and targeted with a system like Ticketsolve.

Ticketsolve can help you identify lapsed customers, and then using integrated MailChimp, you can create campaigns to win back these lapsed customers.

What Messages to Use?

While even a simple, "We've Missed You" campaign is useful, using other data such as previous purchase history or timing can let you target your message more effectively. Current recommendations based on previous purchases or perhaps discounts or even complimentary items are excellent ways to welcome back lapsed customers.

While this is only one strand to customer retention and lapsed customers, using data to create targeted campaigns and segmenting your lapsed customers can help you zero in on those customers with targeted messages and campaigns. Do you use Ticketsolve to target lapsed customers?

Do you want to learn more about how we can help you increase customer retention? Contact us! Don't forget to check back, we'll have a video showing you how this is done within Ticketsolve.