The Art of Business: Keeping Your Clients

Eric J. Adams

Here are a few sobering statistics:
Companies on average lose 50 percent of their clients every five years. Sixty-six percent of those clients leave due to poor client care, according to the Yankee Group. And it’s five to ten times more costly to acquire a new client than to retain a current one, says PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Simply put, current and past customers are a gold mine, and your revenue-generating strategies should start with building customer loyalty with the clients you have and wooing back former clients.
You may think you need a large infrastructure to do so, but that’s not true. In fact, if you’re a solo practitioner or owner of a small firm, your flexibility and ability to customize make you especially suited to promoting customer loyalty.
Building client loyalty begins (and ends) with organizing your entire business to focus on the needs of clients. Here are a few tips:

• Make client care a key part of your complete business strategy.
• Make sure you or any employee having contact with clients has access to all the information needed to serve clients fast and efficiently.
• Give employees the power to make certain decisions independently.
• Set standards for speed and courtesy when answering phone calls and emails.
• Learn as much about your clients’ industries as you can.
• Find out what, when, and how clients buy, and use this information to improve the service you offer.
• Find out more about your clients by generating opportunities for feedback, be it informal conversations, during meetings, or through simple surveys.
• Develop a brand around your company and its services. If clients can identify with your company and feel good about it, they will be more likely to remain loyal.
• Create a distinctive company logo and slogan to use on all printed and Web materials.
• Champion your company “story” or carve out an area of expertise to differentiate you from the competition.
• Make sure everyone on your team has good basic communication skills.
• Think of ways to make life easier for clients.
• Try to anticipate, rather than react, to client needs.
• Save the client from inconvenience.
• Exceed your clients’ expectations.
• Always keep your promises.
• Keep clients informed about any problems, and make it easy for them to contact you.
• Use your Web site to give clients services and information they want.
• Use appropriate technology. A good database system can help you record, organize, and plan your contact with clients.
• Personalize all communication.
• If you use a computerized telephone system, give clients the option of talking to a person at any time.
• Pay special attention to both sets of VIPs: your Very Important People, and your Very Irate People.
• Create opportunities for feedback. The more you know about clients, the better you can meet their needs.
• Ask new clients why they chose you over the competition and existing clients what you could do better.
• Encourage complaints. Complaints are a vital indicator of what needs to be improved — and how to gain a competitive advantage.
• Keep dialog open.
• Let key clients know you value them. Reinforce that idea in all communications with them.
• Invite key clients to special events or give them appropriate holiday gifts.
• Ask for clients’ opinions before making significant decisions.
• Only offer services that match clients’ needs.
• Have regular contact with clients.
• Be original. The challenge is to distinguish yourself from all the others.
• Be sincere.

In short, put your clients and their needs first, get it done right, and be as professional as possible at every step along the way.
Getting Clients Back
Inevitably, you’ll lose some clients, but it doesn’t have to be forever. Here’s a strategy for regaining lost business.

1. Uncover the reasons behind your client’s defection. Doing so will help you decide if you actually want a client back, and if so, the best way to achieve that goal. Lost clients usually fall into one of five categories:
   • Clients who are intentionally pushed away. This includes clients you’ve stopped serving because they’ve proved too hard to please or are too much of a credit risk.
   • Clients who are unintentionally pushed away. You’ve offended or angered a client by failing to deliver goods or services as promised.
   • Clients who are pulled away. A competitor has offered a better value, such as friendlier service or better quality.
   • Clients who are bought away. A client was lured by a competitor who offered lower prices on the same or similar services.
   • Clients who moved away. The client either physically relocated or outgrew a need for your products or services.

   Generally speaking, unintentionally pushed-away clients and pulled-away clients make the best candidates for return business.

2. Determine the present needs of lost clients. Use the normal methods you might with a new client: research online; study their Web sites; call around to people in the know, even people within the company, to gather information. Anticipate their needs.
3. Create a communication plan that reinstates confidence. You’re going back in, and your pitch better be right on. Think “relevancy.” Lost clients need to feel like your communication is tailored to their particular circumstances, history, and current needs. Timing also plays a major role in a win-back campaign. Wait too long and you’re a forgotten entity. Try too soon and the wound may be too fresh.
4. Think big, but start small. Start with a smaller client and, as you get better at understanding the dynamics of re-engaging clients, move to bigger, more important clients.
5. Be honest, sincere, and accountable. Sometimes wooing back clients involves little more than a sincere mea culpa and an honest conversation. You screwed up. Everyone does. A good dose of honesty and self-reflection goes a long way.

Stay Real
Designers run the risk of deceiving themselves into thinking their clients are happy because of a close day-to-day working relationship. Design is a very creative process and sometimes clients can be a little shy about something that’s bugging them.
So the next time you’re ready to embark on a campaign to solicit new business, think about starting with your past and present clients. They represent your best chance of creating more business.