An article in Entrepreneur magazine raised a point about sales and business that isn’t often considered. What do we do when our customers walk out the door? Unfortunately there are dozens of factors as to why a customer might leave you. Some of these things may be beyond your control and others are things where a proactive approach may have prevented the loss or where a reactive approach may help gain them back.
The first thing to find out when you lose a customer is why? Customers don’t usually take there business elsewhere for no reason, especially if they were a long-time client. The article I read suggests doing an immediate SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis on your selling approach and business model. It’s good to look at the market your in and see if there have been any big changes. Also check to see if you are staying current with pricing and see what your competitors are doing. Another great suggestion is that if you find you can’t objectively analyze yourself and your approach, get someone else involved who can be objective.
The second important thing is to write a plan of attack on how you are going to get that customer back. You need to be organized and set personal goals and benchmarks with timelines that make sense. It’s also important to not wait to long before you try to reconnect with your client. According to the article this is a big mistake and can lose their business for good. The customer wants to feel that they are cared for by you, not merely just another number.
Thirdly, it may be too much to expect your customer to come right back. The best thing to do in this case is to edge your way back into a relationship with them. You can do this by trying to get them into a different product, or a smaller portion of your product. Get a smaller “yes” and over time try to turn this into a bigger project.
Fourth, it’s very important to try and request an exit interview. This can help you find out exactly what their reasons for leaving you were. A key here is to not be defensive about criticism but to listen and even be apologetic if it is warranted. See this as an opportunity to learn about yourself and also about your client needs that weren’t being met. This information may eventually lead you and your client back together again in the future.
Lastly, it’s important to get to bottom of the issue. A great, yet hard, suggestion is to ask, “is it me?” Sometimes it’s not the company as a whole that is the poor fit. It may be, that you need to step off the project and let someone more in tune with this particular customer take over. Often an honest conversation with the client can lead to more openings about company, client relationships. This can eventually lead the customer back to your side.
One thing to keep in mind is that customer turnover is a part of business. Don’t sweat it when you can’t win back a customer. Sometimes there are factors beyond your control that lead a client to “move on.” If your do your best to understand the what, where, why, and how about your client, it really increases your chance of getting them back.
BoweryJE22
There is nothing more frustrating that losing a sale. Often times when I was selling advertising I would invest a ton of time in a prospective client only to have them tell me that they decided to go another direction or that they wanted to wait until next year. In these situations it’s very easy to get down and think that you are doing something wrong and losing sales as a result. Ultimately though, I had to learn to accept that you can’t sell to everyone, and occasionally they would change their minds.
I think this is great advice. Losing a sale can be really difficult, and discovering the reason is the key to moving forward and preventing it from happening again. You analyze your methods, fight to get them back, and most importantly listen to their experience and maybe what new pain they were experiencing. Perhaps if you can identify and “cure” that pain, your business may have added a new value proposition!