Why did your best customer or client stop working with you and your company?
You can’t just ignore the fact that they’re gone.
There are so many relationships and even friendships that were built over the years working together. It’s hard to believe that they’ve moved on to conduct business with another organization.
Every situation is different, however, when you drill down into the reasons companies, clients and customers move on there are some common elements.
When communication is inconsistent or lacking this will eventually cause a problem.
It’s not only at the customer service level. It may be that Sales has been communicating one expectation, Marketing has been sharing these messages or similar ones while Manufacturing has not been producing along these lines.
This crosses over into clear expectations.
The expectations for the end product and it’s future options as well as pricing. Unexpected price increases, especially when not communicated well in advance and effectively, will certainly have a negative impact on the relationship.
When there may have been less competition in your area of expertise or industry your value proposition stood out. Now there may be more competitors or due to poor and irregular communication the value your company provides is no longer recognized as a leader in the business.
Is your response time at the level it needs to be when a client is having an issue?
By the way, this is not determined by you, it’s determined by the client.
These various areas each one on it’s own over time will cause a consistent and regular company, customer or client to stop working with a company.
For some the ‘over time will cause’ part may be quite a bit shorter and sooner than it might for another one. If there’s more than one of these items happening you can be certain the exit timeline will be faster.
The answer is to look in the mirror and accept that it’s not the fault of the customers or the clients it’s the responsibility of your company to set and exceed the expectations you and they have mutually agreed to when you first started doing business together.
The first order of business is to get out there and visit your customers and clients and obtain their honest feedback.
Begin right then to make it your business to implement the changes necessary to get back on track.
NEXT ARTICLE: What happens when your best customer or client stops working with you and your company?
Wenkroy International LLC is a Professional Advisory company with a main purpose of helping entrepreneurs and business people create the strategy, the plan and the steps necessary to achieve that person’s vision for their business and often their life, while navigating the obstacles which may be blocking them from reaching their goals. The process may involve one on one coaching, advising, laser focus days, personal growth workshops and more. The methods utilized are determined together. The results and value positively impact individuals, teams, divisions and across entire companies. People are now able to focus on what matters most to them, because, they have clarity on where they are heading.
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