How to Get Your Customers to Come Back Without Texting Every One of Them
To get customers back, let them know when they're due for their service, not whenever you remember. In Proyecta, the Agenda sends that email on its own, with its own timeframe per service, and never to someone who already has an appointment booked.
Elvia runs a dog grooming salon in Ciudad Victoria. Almost everyone who shows up once leaves happy: the dog comes out bathed, perfumed, and with a little bow. If you run a business like that, you already know the first visit isn’t the hard part. The hard part is how to get your customers to come back without spending your whole Sunday texting every one of them.
That’s what Elvia used to do. She’d open her notebook, look for anyone she hadn’t seen in a while, and send a WhatsApp from her phone: “Hi, how’s Toby doing? He’s due for his bath.”
Sometimes she’d get a booking back. Sometimes she’d message someone who’d already booked for Tuesday, and it looked like she didn’t even check her own calendar. Most of the time she’d run out of steam by the fifth one.
Here’s what message to send, when to send it, and how to let your Agenda send it for you.
Why don’t your customers come back even when they liked it?
It’s almost never because something went wrong. It’s that nobody’s keeping track of when they’re due, and your customer least of all.
Nancy used to bring Toby, her schnauzer, in every three weeks during spring, and then she just stopped coming. Elvia figured she’d switched salons, until she ran into her at the supermarket and Nancy said, a little embarrassed: “Oh, he’s due again! Toby’s starting to smell again.” She hadn’t gone anywhere; she’d just lost track.
That’s the customer you lose most often: the one who was happy and just got distracted. They’re also the easiest to win back, if the reminder reaches them in time.
When should you send the message?
When they’re actually due for the service. That moment depends on the service, not the customer.
A win-back message is a reminder that reaches your customer once the usual gap between one visit and the next has passed, and they still haven’t booked. Send it too soon and it’s a nuisance. Send it too late and they’ve already gone somewhere else.
At Elvia’s salon, there are three different timeframes:
- Bath: by week three, the dog smells like a dog again. 21 days.
- Bath and breed cut: the coat takes longer to grow out. 45 days.
- Nail trim: it almost always comes bundled with a bath, so it doesn’t need its own reminder.
If you send everyone the same message on day 30, you’re late for the bath crowd and early for the breed-cut crowd.
How do you get your customers to come back without sending the messages by hand?
With a reminder that goes out on its own once each service’s timeframe is up. In Proyecta, if your site has a booking calendar, you’ll find it in your dashboard, under Marketing, in Automations. The one that matters is in the To bring them back tab: Time to come back.
If, by the number of days you choose since their last visit, your customer hasn’t booked again, they get an email inviting them back. The timeframe ranges from 14 to 180 days, and defaults to 30 if you don’t change it. Under By service you can give each service its own timeframe, or set it to Don’t send for this service.
Elvia set it up like this: 21 days for the bath, 45 for the bath with cut, and Don’t send for this service for the nail trim. That way, anyone who brought their dog in for a bath and a nail trim doesn’t get two emails for the same visit.
The email opens with “It has been a while since your last visit to…” followed by your business name, and includes a Book my appointment button. With Edit text you can put it in your own words. Elvia changed hers to: “Your furry friend is already asking for it.”
It also follows four rules on its own:
- If they already have an appointment, they won’t get it. No more messaging the person who already booked for Tuesday.
- It’s one email per visit. If they don’t come back, it won’t nag them. The next reminder only goes out after their next visit.
- Never more than one on the same day, even if they have two services with a timeframe set.
- It goes out between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m.
It starts off: nothing goes out until you turn it on.
What do I say to the customer who booked and didn’t show up?
No scolding. A “we were expecting you, hope everything’s okay” and an open door for another appointment, because if you call them out, they won’t come back.
That’s what We miss you is for. It goes out when you mark an appointment as No-show: 24 hours later if you don’t change the timing (or 2, 4, or 48), and only if that person hasn’t booked again since then. The text already comes in that tone: “We were expecting you at… and could not see you. We hope everything is all right.”
Sergio didn’t show up one Thursday with Lola, his poodle. Elvia had set aside the whole morning for him and she was annoyed. She marked the appointment, and the next day Sergio messaged her on WhatsApp: his car had broken down and he’d felt too embarrassed to say anything. He booked for Saturday using the button in the email.
All you have to do is mark it. If you don’t, as far as the Agenda knows that customer showed up, and the email never goes out.
Should you offer a discount to get them back?
Not in every message. If every reminder comes with a discount, your customer learns to wait for one before booking.
That’s why Time to come back doesn’t carry a code. Only two messages can include one of your discount codes:
- Happy birthday, which goes out on their birthday if you’ve noted it in their profile under Customers.
- Visit reward, which goes out once per person when they hit their 3rd, 5th, or 10th visit, whichever you choose. Only visits that actually happened count: no cancellations, no no-shows.
Elvia chose 10 visits and a 10% discount code. That way the discount reaches the person who actually earned it.
What do you need to know before turning it on?
That these messages go out by email, that they need your customer’s email address, and that only you can change them.
- These messages only go out by email. WhatsApp only sends the confirmation and appointment reminders, and they reach every customer who left a phone number, unless they said no.
- No email, no message. In New appointment, email is optional, so ask for it on the first visit.
- Only whoever manages the site can turn these on or change them.
How do I get this running in my business?
Describe your business to Proyecta in your own words. Something like: “a site for my dog grooming salon in Ciudad Victoria, with a booking calendar; services: small dog bath $250, bath and breed cut $450, nail trim $80; before-and-after photos of the dogs; WhatsApp button”.
Once the Agenda is taking bookings, go into Automations, turn on Time to come back, and set a timeframe for each service. From there, getting your customers back no longer depends on you remembering.
Before you pick the days, open your calendar and find three customers who used to come regularly and stopped. Count the days between their last two visits. That’s your timeframe, and it’s almost always a lot shorter than how long it took you to notice they’d stopped coming. Get started at proyecta.dev.