CentriWebA win back campaign is a short, planned set of messages to customers who used to buy from you and have gone quiet. It works when you pick the right people, write to them about something that matters to them, stop after three attempts and only contact those you have the right to contact. The consent point is where most small businesses go wrong, so we cover it in detail below.
This article is for owners of service businesses who already hold a list of past customers in a CRM, a booking system or a spreadsheet. It sits beside our guides to customer retention strategies, which keep people from leaving, and to a database reactivation campaign, which covers the wider list. This one is about the individual customers who left and the rules around contacting them. It is general information, not legal advice.
Decide who counts as lapsed
A customer is not lapsed because it has been a while. They are lapsed when they have gone well past their own normal rhythm. Work out the usual gap between jobs or visits for your business, double it, and use that as the line.
- A cleaner or gym with a monthly rhythm: lapsed after around two months.
- A trade with an annual service: lapsed when the service is overdue by a few months.
- A one-off project such as a renovation: not lapsed at all, so use a check-in at the warranty point or a referral request instead.
Write the rule down, and put a “last job” date in the record. Without it you cannot build the list.
Who to leave out
The list you build should be shorter than the list you start with. Remove, before anything is sent:
- anyone who unsubscribed or asked not to be contacted
- anyone in a dispute, a complaint or a refund discussion, who needs a personal conversation first
- anyone who left because of a problem you have not resolved
- anyone whose contact details look wrong or stale, such as a bounced email
- anyone you cannot show consent for, if your message is promotional (see the rules below)
Sending a cheerful offer to a customer who left angry makes things worse. A short list of the right people beats a long list of everyone.
Consent first: Australia and New Zealand
New Zealand. The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act is enforced by the Department of Internal Affairs. Its FAQ says you cannot reasonably infer consent from a single transaction, and that consent cannot be inferred a year or five years after one. It gives a gym as an example: once a member has left or unsubscribed, the gym cannot send commercial messages again without fresh consent. The onus of proving consent is on the sender, and verbal consent is acceptable if you keep a record. Its page on unsubscribing says a person can complain if they still receive messages five working days after unsubscribing, or if the unsubscribe option is not clear and conspicuous. Our guide to email and text marketing rules in New Zealand works through more cases.
Australia. Commercial emails and texts fall under the Spam Act 2003, whose headings include that unsolicited commercial electronic messages must not be sent, that they must contain a functional unsubscribe facility, and that the Act sets out when consent may be inferred and when withdrawal of consent takes effect. The Australian Communications and Media Authority publishes guidance on each of those, and you should read it for your situation before a campaign. Our guide to SMS marketing laws covers the Australian rules in more detail. In other countries, check your own regulator’s rules before a campaign.
What this means in practice:
- A win back message is a marketing message. Do not assume that being a past customer is enough consent.
- Look for evidence: a ticked box on a booking form, a signed-up newsletter, a reply saying yes. Record it in the customer’s record.
- If you do not have consent, do not send a promotional email or text. Use a channel with different rules, check those rules, and ask for consent at the next real contact, such as an invoice, a service call or a conversation at the counter.
- Every message identifies your business and carries an unsubscribe that works. When someone uses it, stop straight away, and update every list.
A personal phone call or a one-to-one message from the person who looked after them is a different kind of contact from a bulk send, but phone marketing has its own rules, including Australia’s Do Not Call Register. Check the rules for the channel you plan to use.
What to say in a win back message
Good win back messages are specific, short and easy to say no to. They mention the last job, give one reason to come back and make the next step simple.
Message one, a personal check-in, with no offer:
Hi [Name], it’s [Person] at [Business]. It’s been a while since we [did the job], and I wanted to check whether everything is still working well. If you need anything, reply here or call me on [number]. If you’d rather not hear from us, tell me and I’ll remove you.
Message two, ten to fourteen days later, something useful:
Hi [Name], a quick note from [Business]. [One useful, true thing: for example, a seasonal check that matters for what we did for you, a change to how we work, or a time that has opened up.] Book here: [link]. Reply STOP to opt out.
Message three, a further two weeks on, the close:
Hi [Name], I won’t keep messaging. If you ever need [service] again, we’re at [number]. Thanks for being a customer.
Avoid urgency you cannot back up, such as a fake deadline. Avoid guilt. And keep any message that confirms a booking or answers a question separate from the promotional ones.
Timing: when to send
Send on a weekday during business hours, when a reply can be handled the same day. Avoid the first message landing on a public holiday weekend or in your own busiest week, because a reply that waits three days wastes the effort. Start with a small batch of twenty or so, read the replies yourself, and fix the wording before sending to the rest. Space the three messages as above, and put a date in the customer record so nobody on your team contacts the same person separately in the meantime.
Ask why they left
The most valuable reply to a win back message is not a booking. It is a reason. If someone says the price was too high, a competitor was closer, the crew was late or they no longer need the service, you have learned something. Record it in a “reason left” field with a short pick-list and look at the pattern every quarter. Several people leaving for the same reason points to a problem in the business that marketing cannot fix.
When a discount helps, and when it does not
Offer something when you know the reason for leaving was price or timing, and keep the offer small and real. If they left because of service, a discount tells them you think they can be bought. Fix the problem and say what changed. If you are unsure, offer a free check, a priority booking time or a personal call instead of a percentage off.
A worked example with made-up numbers: if your list has 150 lapsed customers with consent, and ten of them rebook after a three-message sequence at an average job of $250, that is $2,500 from people who already knew you. Replace the figures with yours and compare it with the cost of the ads you would otherwise run to find new customers.
Run your win back campaign, then measure it
Set the campaign up once so it runs the same way each month for newly lapsed customers. That is better than a big annual blast. Count three things: how many were contacted, how many replied or rebooked, and how many unsubscribed. A high unsubscribe rate tells you the list or the message is wrong. Our guide to customer lifetime value shows how to put a figure on what a returning customer is worth over time.
CentriWeb builds the lapsed-customer rules, the consent records and the message sequence inside your CRM and automation, and hands anything that needs a person to your team. If you have a few dozen past customers, a personal phone call from the owner may do the job without any software.