Keeping Customers: How Not to Lose Business
You never want to hear a customer tell you that he’s thinking about switching to another supplier, but you also can’t prevent a customer from talking to the competition. Here's what to do to keep your customers.
1. Learn that customers value what you’re doing.
Happy customers don’t look to leave you for the competition. How do you make a customer happy? You deliver more value that what you’re charging. You should be having at least one annual value delivery planning meeting with your most important customers. At that time you review the work you’ve done that has helped your customer reduce costs or increase their revenues. At that meeting you should also learn how your work has made your customer’s job easier or more productive.
Then you should learn a very important piece of information: you find out if they value what you’ve delivered. Ask, "Is this work important to you?" If a customer tells you “yes,” you’re more likely to keep their business. If he says, "no," you've just learned that you’re not as valuable as you thought you were if he doesn't value what you delivered, and you have more work to do to prevent lost business.
2. Build relationships across the organization.
You are more vulnerable to lose business if you have a business relationship with only one person at your account. You should actually be connected to people who more senior than your contact as well as more junior. And why? You get different information from each.
You have a reason to meet a senior person when you can demonstrate and document your value and present the report. Senior people understand the true costs of doing business and changing suppliers. You are less likely to lose business when you build a relationship with a senior contact.
Having a relationship with a person who uses your product is another way to prevent lost business. A dissatisfied user can complain enough to management to force you to lose your business. Users who like you are more likely to tell you when there are problems so you have the chance to fix a mistake. When you fix your mistakes you are less likely to lose business.
3. Don’t give them a reason to shop.
Your job is to be aware of those difficult sales conversations and be sure you are conducting them diplomatically. You are in danger of losing business when you cause a customer to lose face or if they feel like you’re taking advantage of them.
I once went into a sales meeting with a large account. All the top managers were in the meeting. Imagine my surprise when my sales manager congratulated my customer for having a profitable year. Then he announced, “Now you can afford a price increase.” He then raised the customer’s price. I later learned the customer immediately started talking with a competitor and changed suppliers after a three-month test.
Keeping existing business is a lot easier than getting new business. Just be sure you’re doing what you need to do to keep your customers to want to buy from you.
