How to keep clients from walking

Customer attrition, also known as customer churn, customer turnover, or customer defection, is the loss of clients or customers. All businesses have to deal with customer defections. If one or many of your customers leave you, then it’s entirely your fault. This article details the causes and how to prevent them.

There are many reasons for customer defections. For example price, quality, post purchase experience and service failure to name a few. The market is a very competitive place. There might be several businesses who are delivering better service and products at a price lower than what you are offering. Losing a client or important customer can be painful. You might be left questioning yourself, wondering where things went wrong and if you could have done anything differently. Rather than second guessing yourself, in the future, you might want to be on the alert for any signs that you might be on the brink of losing a client.

Clients often leave clues that they're thinking of heading toward the exits. If you are attuned to those hints, you might be able to do something about it, or at least prepare to find some new big clients to replace that possible loss of revenue. What are some of the warning signs that your biggest client is about to leave you? Here are some reasons that you can be on the lookout for.

• Time. Your client is spending less time with you. When clients stop calling or become unavailable for regular reviews its a possibility that something is happening

• Pricing. It can be difficult to understand why a customer would choose someone over your product or service; especially, when, all things considered, you are both offering comparable items or services. Certainly, discounts will have an impact on customer behaviour

• Downturns. Your client's industry is in crisis mode. Businesses can be subject to certain downward financial cycles that may be caused by (for example by) changing commodity prices or a bad weather patterns

• Product Service Failure. Quality control is critical in the opinion of most customers. Your selection or use of services and products will have a direct impact on your customer's satisfaction.

• Broken promises. Don’t expect customers to run around the business hierarchy to get their issues sorted. Deliver what has been promised. Stick by it and don't deviate.

• Leadership. Your client has a change of management. Perhaps the CEO or CFO has been replaced and the new management is wanting to make some changes

• Dissatisfaction. Your client is critical. If you've been doing a great job for your client for months or even years and they suddenly start demanding more detailed reports and giving directions on how to do certain things, they're likely getting ready to make a move

• Completion. Your client's needs have been satisfied. You may have fixed the problem. Your client may conclude that he or she doesn't need you any longer

Here are some ideas from The Business Minder that you can use to ensure that your customers remain loyal to your business...

Research

You need to find out what is important to your customer that makes them remain loyal or otherwise to your business. Look into the reasons where your product or service failed to satisfy the customer. Have regular surveys conducted to see how satisfied the customer is and what are the issues which are bothering them. Surveys can be conducted online, through face to face interactions, through feedback from websites or response received from mailers. Once the feedback is there it is of prime importance to see that action is taken on those points.

Solutions

After you have carefully identified the major causes of customer defection, produce and manage some solutions. To achieve this, you will need to do put in a lot of hard work. Reorganise and shuffle your existing strategies. Eliminate factors that are impairing the smooth functioning of your service process. Take advantage of positive factors that you can use for retaining customers and work towards enhancing them.

Implementation

This stage is where you put your proposed solutions into action. Building stronger customer bonds is of vital importance and it may take a good amount of time. Make sure you are prepared to face the challenges. Renewing your relationship with a dissatisfied customer will require you to start working from scratch. Winning back a lost customer can be a very difficult task. Document your strategy before you begin to make it operational. This will avoid possible errors and save revenue. With the right strategies and a good amount of perseverance, you can regain the customer’s loyalty as well as improve your business' reputation.

Empowering Staff

Many times customers defect because your employee that they were interacting with was not able to help them or provide the right information. It basically boils down to the business not having a proper empowerment policy in place. Give adequate powers to people across the hierarchy to take decisions and close issues which need urgent action.

An existing customer is more profitable than acquiring a new one and customers need to be immune to any problems that may occur within your business. Customers need to be made feel special and also should get value for money for the relationship. If you have a need to identify and find solutions to any weaknesses in your business call now The Business Minder. The Business Minder helps business in ASEAN countries with consulting services available in Bali Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam.