No matter where they operate, many food truck vendors have a similar problem. They have a group of top customers that track down their truck but then often disappear for long periods of time. The problem is that during this time they are spending their money elsewhere. According to a recent study by Thanx.com, 69 percent of today’s consumers will not return to the same location for the up to four months.

This statistic may scare some of you but these fly by night customers are not necessarily consumers you should write off. You can win them back to your truck, as long as you figure out who they are and have a way to re-engage them. Today we’ll discuss four steps to getting your top customers back to your service window.

4 Steps To Keeping Your Food Truck’s Top Customers

Identify Your Top Customers

Because the world has become technology driven, vendors should consider building data-driven relationships with their top customers. Food truck owners can no longer fly blind. You also cannot make excuses for starting marketing campaigns that don’t produce customer data. You need to understand the last time someone visited your truck, how often they stop by and how much they are worth to your business, based on average spending and longevity.

RELATED: Calculating Your Food Truck Customer Lifetime Value

Act Before It’s Too Late

By using customer data and individual purchase histories, food truck owners can identify when top customers start slowing down on the frequency to your food truck. This information will give you the ability to tailor a marketing campaign to re-engage them before it’s too late. It should not take months of inactivity to know when your regular customers stop visiting. With the right information, a food truck marketing campaign can look at almost every customer individually.

The key for creating an effective campaign is to know when to use incentives at the right time that target the right customers. Offer an incentive too early and you may waste your marketing budget on loyal customer. Wait too long and you may lose a top customer forever.

Communicate & Give Reasons To Return

Communicating with previously loyal customers is eight times more cost effective than acquiring new customer and more likely to come back more often. The challenge most vendors face is that most of their customers don’t share feedback. If you don’t use the tools available to you which give you the ability to communicate with customers and show you care, you’re letting revenue walk past your truck. But how do you get in touch with them? From new apps that turn up by the day, email, newsletters, and social media your options are limitless.

Keep Your Top Customers Loyal

Once one of your top customers is won back, it’s important to keep them engaged. This is where great service, active feedback and a loyalty program can help your truck stand out from the competition. The best time to install these types of programs is during the good times. If you wait until food truck business is declining or you’re recovering from a crisis, you may find yourself losing top customers without a way of getting them back.

If you’ve lost top customers, you may think they’re gone forever. By using these four steps, you may have a chance to win them back. Share your thoughts on this topic in the comment section below or on social media. Facebook | Twitter