Whether you’re a small startup owner or part of a tech giant, your success hinges not just on the products or services you offer, but on the trust and loyalty you cultivate with your clients. In this article, we’ll explore the best practices for nurturing client relationships and try to learn how to avoid a painful breakup with a customer.
A customer could leave for many reasons. They could go out of business. There could be a change in the people and a new person in charge doesn’t understand the service and decides to cut costs. Perhaps the customer is acquired and their parent company also has the same service and so they cancel and consolidate. But sometimes we make mistakes and a customer cancels because they are not happy and want to end the relationship.
Customer Relationships
This is the key point: it is a relationship. Yes, the customer is wanting and needing a great software solution, data analysis and a reliable service, but underpinning this is a relationship. Over time relationships build trust, and often, friendship. When you have a lot of credit in the emotional bank account the customer may forgive you for a wobble here and there.
The Crowdstrike headache that the world witnessed recently would be an interesting case study. They appear to have a very big customer base. We wonder how many of their customers cancelled their service after what happened.
Mistakes
Everyone makes them. The thing is when we make a mistake is how do we behave afterwards. Do we pretend nothing is wrong and hope the problem goes away? Do we focus on blaming someone instead of trying to solve the problem? Do we suddenly disappear and turn off our phone when the shit hits the fan? Or, do we take responsibility and communicate responsively and gracefully. If something goes wrong, and it always does, we cannot run away from the problem, and assigning blame never solves anything, and being hard to get a hold of only makes things worse.
In my experience the number reason for a mistake is poor communications. Where the customer expected something, and we were on a different page. When the customer is excited about the first iteration of a new web app, say, and the big day comes, and then they are disappointed. If this happens it is for sure because expectations were not met, and things were not communicated properly.
Another reason is – you don’t listen to your customer or don’t listen enough. It does not matter how good your salad bar is (or software, or a specific product), if a client asks for a burger, give him a burger. If you think that what a customer really needs is different to what they say, then guide or even educate your customer.
If any one of you reading this has a smart house in your home then I am sure you will know, as we have learned, that these things are constant maintenance and fixing. And because it is our home, we tend to get quite frustrated. If our office has a faulty light switch then we can live with it, but when we come home from a long day at work we don’t want to be bothered by the lights not switching on because the smart house is wonky. And the thing about the smart house is that most people don’t understand the technology and the guys who are selling this stuff are often disliked because we, as the customers, need some more education before we go on this high-tech misadventure. The guys who put in our smart house should have said to us “This is not a mature technology”. But the communications were not good, and the excitement was high, so things unfolded, and now we have a beautiful home, and a crazy smart house, that needs to be replaced, one day.
Looking after a customer is one thing, but before we land a customer we need to find these new prospective people that we are keen to try build a relationship with. Yes, I am stating the obvious, but what is often not so clear is how we qualify if that potential customer is right for us, and vice versa. If I go to a burger joint, because some cool advertising excited me and I decided to give it a try, then I will be disappointed customer if they are out of burgers and are only selling pizzas that day. A silly but simple example.
What was less simple was back in the early days of the first Internet Service Providers. We had this one person call us up, and she brought her boss over, and a big delegation of folks in dark suites. She clearly was excited and it became evident that she was tasked with exploring this new buzz word “Internet” and set up a meeting at our ISP offices and when the meeting began she says “We want to Internet”. I knew what she was trying to say but I could see that this was going to be a tough meeting. They did not have a company network. The boss person wanted to hook up a PC at the office with a modem and no one knew anything about the Internet. Trying to educate everyone was not easy and one had to keep a cool head. I can’t say I passed that test with flying colours, but I can tell you that I never had another meeting like that again. The next time someone wanted to come over and see us I made sure to understand all about the network thay had, how many computers were on their network, etc. This was back in the mid 90s, and many people did not have any knowledge then about the Internet and we were pretty new at it too. Lots of funny stories and quite a few misadventures.
How to avoid miscommunication?
Write stuff down and make sure that all parties have read the memo. Do not assume anything. If I write down key points and minutes from a meeting and email them to the customer then we need to follow up and make sure these notes have been read and absorbed.
If there are any questions let the customer ask them. Alignment is the most important thing and it doesn’t happen by chance. Feedback is another fundamental and it is constant process. It all should become second nature.
Tone of voice
Keeping a cool head is sometimes not so easy, but we always have to strive for this. I remember a situation where a friend asks me to call his friend about his laptop that had been hit by ransomware. I reluctantly do this because I knew there was nothing I could do except recommend to call a cybersecurity firm that specializes in this kind of thing. I understand that the man with the locked laptop from the ransomware was freaking out and as a courtesy to my friend I made the call, and said I can recommend some firms he could call. The man on the end of the line was ranting and raving and took his stress out on me. It was not fair or cool, but I stayed calm and said I can recommend a good person that they could call and that could try help them. The man on the phone was so freaked out that he didn’t listen to me and shouted something like “You need to come here now and fix this”. I took a bit a more abuse and eventually he caught his breathe and thanked me for calling him. I never called this person again. And I never will. But I was calm and graceful. They on the other hand, were unhinged.
Customer Service
Here is an interesting question: do we go to a restaurant for the food or the service or both? Many people would argue it is all about the food, but ask a guy on a first date, or a company team building dinner, or wedding anniversary. The food is secondary, in many of these cases. Yes, if the food was bad we would not go back there. But if the service was bad, we would also not go back there. And if the service was good, we may enjoy going back there just because we feel comfortable in that place.
If customer service is something you hold dear, as a core value, then being unresponsive should not be a thing. If a new person joins our company and they are unresponsive then that person needs to go. Being rude, being arrogant, being full of shit, having an attitude…none of these will help keep a customer. Humility, honesty, kindness. These are fundamental. And to me, in my personal experience, when we are consistent, this is the most important thing. No one trusts a person who is responsive one week and then the next week totally aloof. Do not be Jekyll and Hyde.
It is the same with software development. Yes, the code is the key, and the quality of the deliverable is what counts, but if the customer does not enjoy dealing with us then they will leave us at some point. If we are rude, arrogant and inconsistent, then no one will care about the quality of the code. People want partners, and not robots. We are human beings and we like ideas and creativity. We need feedback, good and bad. If you can see something that could go wrong with a customer’s plans or vision, then communicate that. But be calm and graceful. A customer who trusts you will appreciate constructive feedback. A bit of gentle criticism could save the day.
Conclusion
Keeping a client is not as hard as it sounds but in practice it can be challenging. But the secret to having a customer for life is simple: just keep your promises. If you commit to always looking after the customer, are consistent, responsive and honest, then the customer will trust you. Trust is what keeps customers for a long time, perhaps for life. It is very easy to lose the trust though, and this is where things go wrong. If a customer stops trusting you, and something goes haywire, you will lose that customer. But if there is a hiccup or a wobble then the customer will most likely forgive you if the trust is high. Of course, the size of the mistake is also an important factor. If you send a customer an incorrect invoice, for example, and they know you well, then that kind of problem will probably be easy to resolve. But if you forget your customer’s name, then that will get their back up. It starts with the small stuff, like this. And then there is the bigger stuff like the quality of the service.
About the author:
Ronnie Apteker, Co-founder of PYGIO, Senior Advisor
Ronnie is a founder of one of SA’s first ISP’s, Internet Solutions, in 1993. This is the root of Ronnie’s strong corporate relationships with Dimension Data and the SA corporate ecosystem.
“My career journey has been about building corporate relationships. This new vision is all about relationship building, building trust, and going the extra mile.”
More articles by Ronnie:
All illustrations used in this article belong to icons8.com
