A survey of 1400 executives was conducted in 2014 with the question asked of them:

“What are the most important criteria to keep you loyal to your suppliers?”

The research showed that 53% of client loyalty is driven by a sales/client engagement person’s ability to deliver unique insight to the client.

Company brand was only 19%, product/service reliability was 19% and price was 9%.

This usually creates quite a bit of conversation.

How important is it that this is the very best we can provide, and yet most companies invest very little of focus and expertise in this area?

Here are the top 5 mistakes companies make, and pay the cost by losing their existing clients:

1. They believe their products/services are the best and the client would never look elsewhere. 

I mean why wouldn’t they be as a passionate as you are about your product/service? Unfortunately, they aren’t, they are focussed on their own products/services. 

2. They stop marketing to their existing clients believing they already know how great they are.

We get so involved in delivering our wares and the clients are so focussed on their wares that we forget to blow our own trumpet to them. If they are not telling us how great, we are maybe they will forget why they chose us in the first place. 

3. They stop courting them, believing that now they are married this is not required anymore. 

Just like any relationship if we do not continue to work hard at it, well it falls apart. We start taking each other for granted.

4. They only have one contact within the client.

This can be a problem when a new person arrives or your contact leaves. Having just one relationship is dangerous, especially if they are not a key decision maker or an influencer. 

5. The client engagement person annoys them rather than provides value.

From a client’s perspective some client engagement people offer no value. They come in, talk about themselves, take up the precious time and leave, until next time.

If we care to acknowledge that we may be guilty of one or more of these mistakes, what could we do to ensure our clients remain loyal to us?

One of the most important activities you could do is have a scheduled quarterly meeting where one of your managers engage with your client and asks:

• Are you happy with what we are providing?

• Do we still solve the problem you originally had?

• Has there been any other issues that have arisen relating to the original problem we are solving with our solution?

• If you were to look at resolving the original problem at this present moment, considering what you have experienced with our services/products, is there anything else you would like to be provided?

• Is there anything we can do differently or even better?

So, give it a go. I can guarantee you will probably create even more opportunities.

Not everyone is confident asking these questions, so this is where we come in.

Contact us to see how we can help your organisation.