Tracking Down Your Ex Customers

A company called Accudata Technologies has come up with a system to help wireless phone companies locate their former customers. From the article:

To get help from Accudata, carriers will first need to send a list of former subscribers to the company. The OCNL[Operating Company Name Lookup] service enables Accudata to search out and locate specific subscribers in North America that have moved on to other carriers by accessing several databases. Accudata pledges to locate and provide subscriber information to its clients within a 24-hour period. The company says the carriers can use the information to contact former subscribers and try to win them back, say by offering them a better deal than they switched for.

The key to approaching former customers is to know why they switched in the first place. If it is a cost issue then systems like this may enable companies to win back some subscribers. If it's a customer service issue expect harassment complaints that may do more harm then good.

Rather than chase customers who have a reason not to use your product or service why not spend the money keeping and building relationships with the customers that you do have and making it easy for them to evangelize your business to others. This is just some of what you can do with a well written B2B email newsletter.

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