The fastest way to grow your business is to reduce the number of clients who leave you. Thus, looking after existing clients should become your top priority. You would have to do more than just service your clients if you want to retain them for a long period of time – for which you would have to transform the business into a client driven organisation. There is a big difference between focusing on service and being client driven.

Follow these 8 Cs for Client Retention to avoid the 9 C – Cancellation:

• Communication: Consistently communicate with clients-on a positive basis. This can accomplished be by telephone, a mail, email, a newsletter, or even just a simple face-to-face chat, handshake and a smile.
• Convenience: Make clients comfortable when you provide service. Listen to their needs. Try not to disturb them. Schedule meeting/appointments via their preferred method (face to face, by phone or e-mail).
• Choices: You may have a core services, but supplement that with services designed to meet each client specific needs. If birches do not bend in the wind, they break and die.
• Consistency: No surprises. Deliver your service on time every time. Don’t alter how you deliver (whether it be changes in products, applications and/or frequency) without first conferring with the client.
• Confidence: Exhibit an air of authoritative knowledge, and back it up with your professionalism and performance. Constant, proper training and development on the technical and communication sides are key.
• Care: Genuinely care and the client will see and feel it. You are not just in the business of selling a product/service. You are also in the business of building good profitable relationships.
• Control: The bottom line is to being able to manage and keep the complaints numbers low enough that the client is happy. This may mean zero tolerance policy for internal issues and a minimum tolerance policy for external factors impacting your business.
• Commitment: Stay focused on doing the job right every step of the way, every time. Every day, renew your commitment to do whatever it takes to “make it happen.”

Proper devotion to the 8 Cs of Customer Retention will go a long way toward preventing the dreaded ninth C – Cancellation.

It has been said time and time again that it costs more to find new customers than to retain existing ones. And even though this maxim has become somewhat cliché, the fact behind the statement holds true – quality customer service leads to retention, and customer retention is the key to establishing any healthy business.

Chintan Bharwada

Chintan is the Founder and Editor of Loyalty & Customers.

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