Lose 'Em to Competitors? Win 'Em Back.

• Position: Regaining customers - Brief Article

Most people don't care for change-and Most they like big changes even Less. And, Let's face it: Mergers and acquisitions are real big changes, and they can lead to real big customer defections.

But you can take steps to minimize-and even reverse-those defections, says customer-relationship authority Jill Griffin and Michael W. Lowenstein, co-authors of the new book "Customer Winback: How to Recapture Lost Customers and Keep Them Loyal." (Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Company, 2001) The book offers a number of realworld examples:

When Norwest Bank (now Wells Fargo) bought up a number of regional banks in Texas, customer backlash was substantial. To counter customers' concerns that they would be overlooked by the big, "impersonal" new entity, Norwest executive Bonnie Martinez developed the bank's first "customer win-back initiative" in Texas.

From within the company, Martinez recruited a staff of sales people to serve on her "winback" team, selecting four people with good communication skills and a lot of resilience. "I pulled the most aggressive, the person who could care less if there was a rejection. I wanted individuals who were not going to get disappointed and would move forward." At least one team member had to be fluent in both English and Spanish.

Martinez converted her own office in San Antonio into a call center. From there, her staff made and implemented daily calling assignments based on the bank's own priority ranking system. Staffers were trained through role-playing exercises and were equipped with information concerning the bank's products and services.

The staff member who knew a former customer best made the initial call, asking why the customer was leaving, where he was taking his business and what attracted him to the competitor. Every customer...