How to Care for Past Customers During 11.11: 6 Steps for Small Shops
When 11.11 arrives, your customers receive dozens of promotional messages at once. They compare prices, compare gifts and scroll past the same greetings. If your shop simply sends one more discount code, your message can easily get lost.
Meanwhile, the group most likely to come back is often the one that gets forgotten: past customers. This article walks you through caring for past customers in 6 steps. You can apply it to a spa, clinic, shop or restaurant, even with only a few staff.
Why does caring for past customers matter during 11.11?
Past customers already know your products, your services and how you treat people. You don't have to convince them from scratch. What they need is a well-timed reason to come back.
The problem is that information about them is usually scattered. Phone numbers sit in a staff member's personal Zalo, notes sit in a notebook, and orders sit in an old spreadsheet. When a staff member leaves, everything they knew about your customers leaves with them.
The sale season makes this problem more obvious. You want to message your customers, but you don't know who bought what, who visited just last week, or who hasn't been back in a long time. The result is that you send the same message to everyone, and customers feel like just a phone number on a list.
What should you prepare before you start?
You don't need a complicated system. Prepare the following:
- Your current customer list, whether it's in a notebook, Zalo or a spreadsheet.
- One person who is mainly responsible for customer care during the sale season.
- Your shop's 11.11 offer, clearly settled: which services it applies to and until what date.
- A dedicated block of time to gather and clean up the data.
What are the 6 steps to caring for past customers in a small shop?
Step 1: Gather customer information in one place
What to do: collect names, phone numbers, most recent purchase and services used in a single place. Remove duplicate rows and fix wrong phone numbers.
What you get: a list that anyone in the shop can find, not dependent on one staff member's phone.
Step 2: Record the care history for each customer
What to do: for each customer, briefly note your previous contacts. For example, what you advised, what feedback they gave, and which time slots they prefer.
What you get: the next time you message them, your staff can pick up the earlier conversation instead of starting over. Customers feel remembered.
Step 3: Split customers into a few simple groups
What to do: don't create too many groups. A few clear groups are enough for the sale season.
| Customer group | How to recognize them | Suitable way to care for them |
|---|---|---|
| Regular customers | Come back consistently | Announce offers early, thank them for their loyalty |
| Customers who haven't returned in a while | Last purchase was quite a while ago | Check in first, mention the offer afterward |
| New customers who bought once | Have used the service only once | Ask for their impressions, suggest a next step |
| Customers who once gave unhappy feedback | Have a complaint note | Ask whether things are okay now, hold off on selling |
What you get: each group receives a message that suits them, instead of one generic message for everyone.
Step 4: Write a separate message for each group
What to do: write a short template for each group, with spots to insert the customer's name and the service they used. The first sentence should be about the customer, not about the offer.
An illustrative example for a spa: “Hi Lan, last time you did a skincare treatment and asked about evening appointments. For 11.11 we're opening extra slots after working hours. Would you like me to hold a spot for you?” This is a hypothetical scenario to help you picture how to write.
What you get: messages that sound like a real person wrote them, so they're more likely to be read and answered.
Step 5: Choose the timing and the channel
What to do: message a few days before the peak day so customers have time to plan. Use the channel where customers usually reply to you, such as Zalo, or call customers who don't like texting. Avoid messaging too late at night or sending many messages in one day.
What you get: customers have time to think it over, and your shop isn't seen as a nuisance.
Step 6: Log the response and schedule the next follow-up
What to do: after each contact, record the outcome in the customer's file. Whether they booked, asked to be contacted next month, or no longer want to receive messages. If a customer declines, respect that and stop messaging.
What you get: after 11.11, you have a cleaner list and know who needs follow-up care and on which occasion.
What mistakes keep past customers from coming back after the sale season?
- Contacting them only when there's a promotion and staying silent the rest of the year.
- Sending the same message to everyone, using the wrong name or mentioning the wrong service.
- Saving offers for new customers while forgetting regular ones.
- Not recording responses, so next season you ask customers the same old questions again.
- Over-promising in messages, leaving customers disappointed when they arrive.
How can you keep up customer management without spending a lot of time?
The simple way is to keep customer records and care history in the same place. When every staff member can see what a customer has bought and how they've been followed up with, customer care no longer depends on one person's memory.
HOJA has a customer module alongside marketing. You can manage customer records and care history in the same software, then use that very information to write messages for each customer group.
Something you can do today: pick a small group of past customers and note down each person's last purchase and one thing you remember about them. That is the foundation for every customer care message to come.
See how HOJA helps you manage customer records and care history