Why. It’s a simple question with vast implications.

A guy starts receiving emails from Victoria’s Secret after placing a gift order – without the details what will those messages say? Are they going to assume he is a direct customer? Why tells the marketing team that instead of multiple-emails a week with personal offers, the message can shift to less frequent suggestions, gift ideas, even useful content that makes the brand useful to him to follow. And the results? Well, I don’t know about you but I don’t know many men buying products for themselves from Victoria’s Secret.

Every day Living Social plays on my Pandora stream, inviting me to become a customer… millions of dollars in ad budgets to reach people with a sign up message who are already signed up. I can close their popups but that’s the extent of the feedback… With a simple question, they could appeal to current customers with value, contextual relevancy, something that doesn’t just make them top of mind but invites consideration. And for the price of one answer, I’d get the benefit of not hearing the same boring ad day in and day out.

Why is the hardest question but digital gives us a medium to answer it every day.

Social has created a frenzy for businesses as well all vye for the customer’s attention pounding them about new products, offers and a host of other campaigns we want to see go “viral” but that’s not where it ends. Customers are ready to spill their guts… not in drawn out forms or lengthy processes but through dialogue.

Not just surveys or expensive focus groups, we can go out with messages to customers in an individualized basis and not only to ask them questions but even to show them that we are asking. And they expect it.

From optimized campaigns to operational learnings, there’s a heck of a lot of value in knowing why.

Nowhere is this more true than remarketing. For any company that intends to last, remarketing revenue is where the gold is mined. Sure acquisition gets the glamour and big budget but it all comes at a loss and it’s only after the second, third or sometimes even later stage purchases that the ink starts to darken up into a nice shade of black. But despite the value, and our proclamations about being transparent, modern, “connected” companies, most of us still send the same offers… if not the same exact creative… to win customers back that went out in 1996.

Enticing as they may be to bring people back, the real chance to grow [and I mean really grow] comes when you know why they left first.

I’m not talking about sampling or cluster surveying. That’s all wonderful information and research you should do to know where your audience lies as a whole, it says nothing to the average customer to show them that you have even the slightest real interest in them beyond their money. And that’s a problem.

By asking each customer you gain two very valuable opportunities. First you give them a reason to respond… the promise of being heard without the thread of being sold too… and that’s enough to restart a connection. Second, and more obvious, you find out what drove them away, and potentially even what might bring them back.

Think about it… If you’re a cable company that sends a letter a week, you may discover that customer Frank doesn’t want TV and instead target him with high speed web, which they he uses for streaming movies daily. If you’re a gym, you could uncover that Sally is 7 months pregnant and taking a break giving you the chance to offer her a new-mother class with child watching upsell. If you’re a CPG you may learn that your product is being made to last longer, that generics are entering the market in offsetting cycles or one of a million of another insights that doesn’t reflect everyone, but is essential to that one prospect ever returning.

1:1 segmentation will never be the easiest or cheapest but then again, building return business isn’t simple or cheap. But thanks to the “social world”, what was once seen as prying is now the consumer’s expectation… People are willing to talk for nothing, heck, social channels show they talk even without being asked. So start asking them and let them tell you how to earn them back – rebuild their trust — or when to move away and save your funds for a warmer prospect.