Title: Customer Winback

Author: Jill Griffin y Michael M. Lowenstein

Publisher: Jossey-Bass

Client loss is an inevitable reality in the majority of companies. However, the impossibility of reducing this process to zero should not lead to resignation or conformism. In “Customer Winback”, Jill Griffin and Michael Lowenstein make an in-depth and exhaustive analysis of the reasons why the feared client abandonment occurs, and they propose detection and prevention mechanisms, as well as ways of recovering the lost client ( service recovery).

In the prologue, Martha Rogers and Don Peppers, affirm that it is surprising not only that a good share of big companies lack systems for detecting clients at risk for abandonment, but that almost nobody is prepared to correct the mistakes immediately after the consumer decides to cancel the company’s services.

Client loyalization laboratories

Griffin and Lowenstein consider the need to transform the organization into a true “client loyalization laboratory”. That is to say, an environment capable of effectively managing retention, loyalization, and recovery , using tests and pilot plans. To do that, they propose, as a fundamental aspect, getting to know each client’s trajectory in detail, as well as the recovered client’s life cycle, which differs notably from the first. Also, they detail some of the techniques that can be applied to detect consumers that are about to abandon the company, and they point out the importance of organizing specialized retention teams.

With direct language and an extensive list of practical cases in which they analyze real situations from large companies, the book explores the different facets of one single problem, churn, and it never tires of emphasizing the importance of not letting one’s guard down. A client’s loyalty is never assured, and therefore defining and establishing a service recovery strategy is critical in assuring the company’s future success.