Can ex-customers actually be better than new customers?

Well, no.  Obviously!  Ex-customers no longer provide revenue to your business.  In some cases, if the relationship you had with the customer soured to an irretrievable point, an ex-customer could even be detrimental to your business.  If this is the case, a small research project might help you to address some sticky points in your overall customer experience.

Too often your focus will swiftly move from an ex-customer to your newest acquisition.  But there is so much to learn from your old customers that can ensure your new customers are as fruitful as possible.  Perhaps you might even reactivate some of your old customers; what a bonus that could be, in an age where buying lists of data can often have mixed results.

Fundamentally, old customers can tell you a huge amount about not only what you can expect from your new customers in terms of length of loyalty, overall spend, purchasing patterns and even (if you profile the data) who your new customers are likely to be.

Old customer and transaction data is gold dust.  Nothing can tell you about your business more than how your business has performed in the past (although if your business has had a radical brand overhaul in terms of product ranges and targeting, then perhaps the best you can get out of your old data is who not to target).  Too many businesses ignore what they already own.  If you can harness the knowledge that’s trapped inside your old data, then you can make significant savings on marketing and acquisition, savings that will be reflected in a larger profit margin. 

As part of understanding your old data, it can help to amalgamate the data sources together into one customer system.  This will allow you to see which customers flip from active to inactive over a certain period of time.  It will also ensure that when your new data becomes old data, you’re in a stronger position to apply what you have learned and ensure your business is always moving forward.