Most customers do not stop buying from you on a specific day. They come back a little less often, the gaps between visits get longer, and one day you realize you have not seen them in months.
By the time a customer is clearly gone, bringing them back is hard. The opportunity is in the weeks before that, when their behavior is changing but they still know you.
Why inactivity is easy to miss
Totals hide individual drift. Monthly revenue can stay flat while a group of regular customers slowly visits less and new customers fill the gap. Nothing looks wrong in the totals until the new customers stop replacing the ones who left.
Inactivity is also quiet. Unhappy customers rarely tell you they are leaving. They simply stop coming back.
The signals that come first
A customer who is becoming inactive usually shows one or more of these changes:
- Longer gaps between visits than usual for that customer.
- Fewer purchases per month than their own recent average.
- Smaller transactions, buying only the essentials.
- Less reward activity: points or cashback earned but no longer redeemed.
- No response to campaigns they used to engage with.
One signal on its own can be noise. A holiday or a busy month explains a single gap. Several signals moving in the same direction is a pattern worth acting on.
Compare each customer with their own rhythm
A fixed rule such as "no purchase in 60 days" treats every customer the same, and that is rarely true. A customer who came every week and has not returned for three weeks is a stronger signal than a customer who buys once a quarter and has not returned for 60 days.
Look at recency together with each customer’s usual visit frequency. The question is not "how long since their last visit" but "how long compared with what is normal for them".
From signals to segments
Grouping customers by behavior makes the pattern visible and manageable. Two groups matter most here:
- At risk: customers who are still buying, but less often, with longer gaps between purchases.
- Dormant: customers with no recent activity.
Watch how these groups change over time. A growing at-risk group is an early warning, often visible months before it shows up in revenue.
What to do once you spot them
- Act early. At-risk customers still have a habit with you; dormant customers have to rebuild one.
- Make it relevant. A reward linked to what they used to buy means more than a generic discount.
- Keep it simple. One clear reason to come back within a set period.
- Watch who responds. Compare their activity before and after your campaign and learn from it.
With OTONUM
OTONUM Insights analyzes recency, visit frequency, purchase frequency, transaction value and reward activity, and groups customers into segments such as At Risk and Dormant. You can follow how each segment changes over time, then use OTONUM Rewards to create a campaign for that audience.