Customer Service Can Be Your Secret Weapon for Client Retention or Sabotage Your Client Relationships

Once the deal is closed and the splashy presentations have been put away, the sales team moves on to the next prospect. Keeping the clients beyond that initial sale very often rests in the hands of customer service (and product delivery). Yet, so many companies fail miserably in three main areas of Customer Service, a critical tenet of business.

Three ways customer service can be your greatest client retention tool, or drive clients away for good:

1. Communication
2. Service
3. Respect

Communication - Best practices

New clients need the most communication (at first).

1. Keep them apprised of developments with their own projects, which is critical to their peace of mind. Do not give them reasons to doubt their decision to work with you.
2. Stay one step ahead of their informational needs, especially if the contact has to report to someone. When you can assuage their concerns in advance of their having to seek you out for updates, you keep them at ease.
3. Explain the work process as it happens, so they feel involved and that you are looking out for their interests.
4. Provide updates and advanced information about their company or industry developments so they feel that you are on the same team, vs. an outside “vendor.”

Case Study — How some industry leaders fail at communication:

An industry leader in the communication field fails to inform their clients that they were acquired and that there will be changes to their services with the company. Clients who find out from third party sources are irate at changes and the disrespect of not receiving this information from the company. This self-serving lack of communication will drive clients away.

Moral: Always communicate directly to clients with important developments, good or bad.

Service - Best practices

Service can be a two way street if clients are involved in the ordering or execution process. Are you setting your clients up to succeed or to fail with the tools you provide them?

1. If the client must follow guidelines, use your website, software or other ordering tools, be sure the instructions are clear and easy to use.
2. Have adequate support personnel to help - in a timely fashion- when they need assistance.

Case Study — How some industry leaders fail at service:

An industry leader in the logistics industry has a visually appealing quoting tools portal. But the steps are so convoluted and difficult to navigate, errors regularly happen for clients. They occur on such a regular basis the company has a department devoted to correcting the errors! The same tools require several people to explain why they do not work as expected.

Moral: Set clients up to succeed instead of planning for corrections.

Respect - Best practices

Are your employees taught how to speak with clients and interact with them when things are going well, and especially when things can go wrong?

1. Provide all employees with training on how to interact with clients, from greetings to service to troubleshooting and follow up.

Case Study — How some industry leaders fail at respect:

Corporate: A new client of the same freight industry giant has a first project with them and confirms the payment arrangements prior to job. The company has a lack of communication internally and the job proceeds to the final step without final payment authorization from the client. The billing department calls and bullies the client about the payment, even though it was the vendor company’s error.

Retail: A customer orders a hamburger at a fast food giant. The customer received a cheeseburger, and when he brought the issue to the clerk’s attention, she said, “but you have to ask for (the ham- burger) without cheese. The customer was stunned that the clerk was arguing with him. The manager stepped in and apologized and handled the situation. (Yet the clerk continued to argue with the manager too).

Moral: Tact and respect are not innate traits. Provide employees at all levels with basic client interaction skills and set policies for expectations.

Where are the corporate sensibilities on how to deal with customers, whether, at retail or in corporate? With the instantaneous feedback customers post on social media, bad experiences become public knowledge in one click. Failures of customer service occur with large, big budget companies, and small ones. This demonstrates a disregard for the value of retaining clients instead of replacing them. Customer service can be the force that keeps or drives your clients away. Examine yours and see where you can create an experience that your clients would not want to leave for any reason.

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