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Customer attrition is a fact of business life. You will lose customers—and they will leave for any number of reasons. But if the relationship is managed properly, you won’t give them a reason to leave in the first place. Here are a few reasons why customers leave and what you need to do to minimize attrition and lure them back in!
Their favorite sales rep leaves…and nobody follows up with them!
It’s happened to you. The reason you keep going back to your favorite place is because you like the person or people there that take care of you. Then that salesperson leaves and things are never the same. When salespeople leave the company, you need to have a strategy in place that communicates your message with your customers. A manager should follow up with the top customers immediately, and then the introduction of a new rep can be made. This shows you are on top of the situation and tells the customer that their relationship matters. If that communication is broken, then your customer will either follow your former employee to their new job or be on the hunt for a new vendor. Make sure you have a strategy in place for the worst case scenario.
Your sales people do not have a strong enough relationship with the customer to begin with.
Good sales and customer service skills are learned and honed. Building a stronger relationship starts with tracking customers information and the details of those conversations (preferably using a CRM), using that information to show the customer you value the relationship (e.g. questions about their last purchase, birthday card on birthday) and using customer services best practices. That said, you should have a training program in place to make sure that the skills of your sales team are strong and they embrace core values and best practices. It shows the employee you care enough to train and it will reflect in the way your team treats the customers when strengthening that relationship.
Price is too high
This is one of my favorites. Contrary to popular belief, customers buy based on emotion—not logic. If the relationship is strong, customers will overlook minor differences in price. If there is a major gap they will let you know, giving you a chance to sharpen your pencil and get the business. The best way to combat this is building stronger relationships in the first place and then helping the customer understand the benefits of the product. Training sales and customer service reps on how to help and handle customer service issues is invaluable. It’s key in solving this common objection.
Own Up to Your Failure
Winning customers back is all about being open and honest. When something goes wrong, own up to it. Customers will be refreshed by your honesty and appreciate that you took the time to reach out and make it right. Putting the blame elsewhere will only help push them further out the door. Winning a customer back is all about owning up to your failure and reminding them why they chose to do business with you in the first place.
So, to recap, implement a CRM that works well with your company and platforms, institute a training program that helps employees and staff add to their customer service skill set, and keep your database clean and up to date so customers don’t fall through the cracks.
