It ain't over 'til it's over: Evaluating reacquisition opportunities in business-to-business markets

a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Customer defection Customer reacquisition Win-back Business-to-business Customer relationship management Using a qualitative critical incident research technique, this paper examines how sales firms evaluate defected customers in order to determine their worthiness for reacquisition. Findings from interviews with fifty professional salespeople suggest that, when sales firms assess reacquisition opportunities, these opportunities are evaluated based on the likelihood of reacquisition and the value of the customer (i.e., ease of reacquisition and value of the customer). Salespeople report that the barriers to reacquisition, leveraging remaining customer relationship and investigating their own value-adding capabilities are critical in determining the ease of reacqui-sition. In addition, salespeople report that account size, profitability, market influence and cross-selling potential are fundamental in determining the value of a customer. Furthermore, the importance of ease and value in reacquisition assessments varies with (1) the reason for the customer defection, (2) the formalization of a firm's reacquisition process, and (3) market opportunities. Managerial implications and future research directions are discussed. Salespeople constantly search for opportunities to gain, retain, and grow business opportunities for their organizations. No matter how effective a company's sales process or customer relationship management (CRM) program is, inevitably, some customers will defect and switch to alternative suppliers. Although there are well established sales processes guiding salespeople to acquire new accounts and to maintain customer relationships, scant literature and processes are in place to guide salespeople to reacquire lost accounts. More important still, no sales research has examined customer reacquisition strategies or has developed a systematic framework to help train salespeople to thoroughly evaluate reacquisition opportunities. Left unguided, salespeople can often ignore a valuable lost account, seek unsound advice, or re-approach lost accounts that are unwinnable or not worth their efforts. When customers defect, they may leave behind a wealth of transaction specific information, including transaction history, preferences, motives and evidence of what prompted their defection. Strategic leveraging of customer relationship portfolios will facilitate an effective and efficient reacquisition evaluation (Thomas, Blatiberg, & Fox, 2004), and help design attractive reacquisition offers. Furthermore, by reacquiring lost customers with the right reacquisition strategy, sales-people may be able to communicate to the customer the importance of their relationship, form stronger bonds with these customers, and redevelop highly profitable exchange relations with these buying firms. A well-designed reacquisition program may also help sales organizations and the sales force better understand their …