Retention Matters

It’s great to be able to acquire new clients. Imagine how much better you would feel if you could also keep the ones you already have?
A large number of the organisations that I visit as part of my travels with Neural Networks, place massive focus on growing their client base through sales activities. What is wrong with placing all your focus on sales activities? Simply put, while they are focusing heavily on getting people through the front door, they may not be noticing the ones leaving via the back door.
A lack of focus on retention activities can also directly relate to the financial performance of organisations. Every year organisations traditionally spend large amounts of money on improving overall sales capabilities and usually align this to their strategic objectives and sales targets to increase revenue generation. Often this turns out to be a wasted investment if they fail to minimise leakage, particularly in relation to existing customers.
One of the things that we heavily focus on at Neural Networks is building value around the products and services that organisations provide to new and existing customers. This is integral in not only ensuring that they meet the customers criteria, but also assists with creating a strong and lasting relationship with the customer based on experience. Further to this, if organisations are not identifying and meeting the true criteria of their new and existing customers every time they have contact with them, they may not be leaving a good impression. Organisations can make it harder for their customers to leave by providing excellent service to them at every opportunity. This way the thought of leaving will not have any reason to enter their mind. People will often pay a higher price and stay where they get good service that always meets their criteria.
There is a real opportunity for many organisations to increase the level of focus that they place on customer service and ultimately retention activities. The idea would be for organisations to place the same level of focus on these areas that they do on sales. This will assist with ensuring that their people are not losing revenue at the same time as generating it. Sales people tend to focus solely on sales activities, because that is their job, and that is what they get rewarded for. It is also easy to identify the rewards that sales people receive for achieving or exceeding target, because this usually takes the form of cold hard cash. A question that I always ask when working in service environments is how do you reward your service representatives for providing great service? The scary part is that I rarely get an answer!
Another interesting observation that I have made recently, is that people in both sales and service environments do not hear the signals that customers provide in relation to ceasing their business relationship. I often suspect that they hear the customer providing a hint, but lack the skill and confidence to be able to retain them. In this instance, they may take the easy way out and find a way to agree with the customer, therefore proactively opening the back door and watching them drive off into the sunset. Addressing this issue is a quick win for many organisations in relation to achieving sustainable growth by plugging the leaks and gaining maximum benefit from acquisition activities. The process can start by simply educating people to listen for the signals and actively respond to the customer’s criteria relating to why they want to change the current situation.
In a nutshell, I feel it gets down to three things:
· Get the sales – but realise that this is only step one
· Provide outstanding service to your new and existing customers – do not provide them with a reason to leave
· Pay attention to the whispers before they turn into screams – look for the signals that a customer is providing and actively respond in an attempt to keep them
To talk more about customer service and retention matters, please call me (03)9555 7955 or E: scott@neuralnetworks.com.au or visit our website at http://www.neuralnetworks.com.au/