Why say goodbye?
Sometimes, leads don’t become customers; other times customers churn. There are many reasons for churn, ranging from changing email addresses or phone numbers to a bad product experience. It’s important to know when to stop contacting inactive subscribers so that you can save on marketing spend.
Let’s dive into what goes into retaining customers and how flows can facilitate this key step in the customer journey.
Automate the end of a customer’s journey
While it can be sad to see customers go, it’s sometimes for the best. That said, how do we automate the end of the customer journey? Let’s walk through 2 flows that automate this process and best practices for each.
Win back lapsed customers
A winback flow identifies lapsed customers and encourages them to make another purchase. Unlike a post-purchase or cross-sell flow, these customers have waited longer than you hoped or expected they would to make another purchase.
Goal: Encourage lapsed customers to purchase again.
Best practices:
- Send at the right time. This flow is triggered by a purchase, so add a time delay that exceeds your average buying cycle. You can get even more precise if your account meets the data requirements for Klaviyo’s predictive analytics tool, by using a date-triggered flow to send a message when someone passes their expected date of next order.
- Acknowledge that it’s been a while since they last shopped with you. Let them know what they missed since their last purchase, such as any new products or exciting business announcements.
- Offer a limited-time discount or incentive to add a sense of urgency.
If these customers continue to engage with your messages, then they are still engaged and should not be suppressed from your list. Recognize that they may have a longer repeat buyer cycle, but still have an interest in your brand and may come back.
Build this flow using Klaviyo’s pre-built template. Search for winback in the flow library.
Sunset inactive subscribers
By the sunset stage of a customer journey, a contact appears disinterested in your brand altogether. These profiles have churned, as they’re highly unlikely to purchase or engage again. The sunset flow provides a final opportunity for those contacts to either reaffirm their interest in your brand, or opt out of future messaging. Unlike the winback flow, which is based on purchase behavior, the sunset flow is based on all interactions with your brand, including engagement with marketing messages, activity on your website, and purchase activity. Thus, it is important to have this flow enabled to ensure you’re not wasting email sends and profile counts on users who will no longer drive business for your brand. For any contacts who don’t engage with this sunset flow, you can suppress them.
Pre-requisites: create a segment of inactive customers using the below conditions. While this criteria is recommended, you can update this segment definition to align with what makes the most sense for your brand:
Then, use this segment to trigger your sunset flow.
Goal: Re-engage inactive subscribers and avoid being billed for contacts that are unlikely to return as customers.
Best practices:
- Craft a subject line that attracts attention. Make it clear that you will remove these subscribers from your list if they do not wish to engage with you further.
- Personalize these messages with details and keep your language straightforward.
- Acknowledge that these subscribers haven't engaged with your brand in a while.
- Restate your value proposition (i.e., why your messages are valuable).
- Give recipients the option to either confirm their interest in your messages or unsubscribe.
- Provide details on new products or exciting business updates they may have missed.
Build this flow using Klaviyo’s pre-built template. Search for sunset in the flow library.