RFM model: Ex-Lovers

In the previous chapter, we focused on the “Don Juan” segment and saw if there are ways to make them come back for more. You might turn them into repeat customers if you understand the motivations behind their high-value acquisitions.

Now it’s time to analyze the Ex-Lovers, an RFM segment that includes former Lovers and Soulmates who are inactive or abandoned your Ecommerce store. 

Why did they stop buying from you? 

This is the main question you have to answer before designing any campaign to win them back.

These customers were very profitable (Monetary Value score of 3-5), made repeat purchases (Frequency score of 2-5), but are inactive and haven’t bought in a long time (Recency score is 1).

Before trying to get this group of customers back, you need to invest some time in analyzing what went wrong in your relationship. Let’s see how you can do that. 

Analyzing the behavior of the Ex-Lovers

Identifying Ex-Lovers

There are many segmentation techniques. If you choose to build an RFM model manually, you can recognize your Ex-Lovers by looking at the customers in your database that have an RFM score equal to 124, 125, 133, 134, 135, 143, 144, 145, 153, 154, 155. The customers with a score of 155 are actually Soulmates that you lost and it might be forever if you don’t act on them effectively.

Using Reveal eliminates the manual work. You can identify this segment by typing “Ex-Lovers” in CRM, in the “RFM name” filter. 

If you go to the Segments section, you can also compare Revenue, Margin, and Customer Count values between Ex-Lovers, Soulmates, and Lovers.

In the report below from Reveal, the timeline view of the customer count by RFM group, you can see clearly if you’re losing high-value customers and how many lost opportunities are hiding behind this segment.

Measure Net Promoter Score

Select only the customers in the Ex-Lovers segment and look at their feedback. The reason why they stopped buying from you might lay in their poor pre or post-delivery experiences, complaints without solutions from your support teams, expectations that weren’t met.

Having Reveal connected with Explore by Omniconvert means that you can analyze the Net Promoter Scores (NPS) given by Ex-Lovers in real-time and look at the NPS surveys recorded in the past to see if there are any issues that could cause customer churn.

Product returns requested by Ex-Lovers

Besides direct feedback, you can find the reasons that caused dissatisfaction among the customers that ended in this segment by looking at product returns. Is there a product, a brand, or a category that seems to raise many problems among your Ex-Lovers segment? It’s worth investing in a performance analysis around the order returns generated by this segment.

Reveal has a section dedicated to Order returns to help you better understand customers’ behavior and identify faster the items that are causing significant losses to the business.

Best performing products/ brands/ categories

Customer purchase behavior helps you create attractive offers for each segment. Looking at the purchase history in your e-store, you can find the most successful items at company level and and best performing items among your power customers.

If you’re preparing offers that are meant to win back the customers in the Ex-Lovers group, you might want to look at what are the Soulmates’ and Lovers’ favorite products, brands, and categories. You can do this by looking in the Buying Habits section.

How to regain their trust and love

Find why you’re drifting apart

If you have no information from your Ex-Lovers to understand why they stopped buying from your e-store, you can ask them directly by sending a personalized email. Don’t be afraid to reach out to these customers. Be friendly, show empathy, avoid creating pressure, and try getting honest answers. Their objections will indicate if there’s any chance of winning them back.

Send them a special present or a special offer

Unless there is a clear sign that a customer in the Ex-Lovers segment is lost forever, there’s still a chance for you to win back their trust and love. Address directly their objections with a special offer designed to improve their lives and to prove that you really understand their needs. Exceed expectations and send them a present that brings them value and reasons to trust you again for their online purchases.

How to keep them close after reactivation

The reactivation generated a boost in the recency scores, but you also have to maintain frequency scores high. To make sure no customer will reach or ever get back in the Ex-Lovers segment, you need to apply the tactics prepared for the Soulmates and Lovers to customers that show a lot of potential considering their RFM scores.

Loyalty programs

Loyalty programs help you mix various tactics that help you increase customer lifetime value and improve experiences for your most valuable clients. 

How to do this?

Use behavioral analytics in Reveal to design loyalty programs that suit best your Soulmates and Lovers segment. Connect Reveal with Klavyio or Sendgrid to send personalized emails. Track your success by keeping an eye on the customers’ recency, frequency and monetary value scores.

Appreciation calls

Call your top customer to thank them for trusting your brand and to make sure everything it’s ok from their point of view in terms of pre- and post-delivery experiences.

How to do this?

Select the most valuable customers in Reveal CRM, download a .csv copy of this list to use during the calls, and add the customers’ feedback in your database. 

SMS marketing

One of the most efficient ways to make the most valuable customers aware of an offer or a gift you’ve prepared for them is using SMS marketing. Used with moderation, SMS campaigns can help you make a good impression.

How to do this?

Make a list of the most valuable customers and export it from Reveal to send SMSs that can generate high open rates and sales.

UX and CX surveys

Measure satisfaction right after the moment of purchase and after the order is delivered. Honest answers from your loyal customers are extremely valuable for future adjustments that can bring you more high-value customers.

How to do this?

Connecting Reveal with Explore allows you to match the Soulmates/ Lovers segment and trigger an NPS survey. To automate the delivery of NPS surveys via email, you can integrate Reveal with Klavyio or Sendgrid.

Cross-selling and upselling

Both strategies can enhance the experiences your customers get through your products and show that your online store has a wide range of products to satisfy their needs and preferences.

How to do this?

Identify in Reveal the products that are more popular among your power customers. Use Explore to suggest products based on the items your clients added to their carts.

Subscription-based purchases

If you’re selling products that can be easily included in a subscription-based program, you’ll be able to take the burden off your customer’s shoulder and to create a buying-habit that generates repeat purchases, increasing frequency scores.

How to do this?

You can push RFM segment tags generated by Reveal to your Shopify CRM and combine the new features of Shopify to detect and show your top value customers the possibility of opting for a subscription-based purchase right in the checkout stage.

If you need more inspiration to keep recency, frequency and monetary value scores high, you can find more tactics that are suitable for your Soulmates and Lovers in the chapters dedicated to these two RFM segments. Make sure you have the right tactics so your Ex-Lovers represent a minimum percentage of your customer base.

Understand why customers become Ex-Lovers, listen to their voices, and use your data and proven tactics to develop marketing strategies that keep customers happy and business growing.