Five Steps to Retaining Clients

Author: Ryan Tuckwood

Alright, so you’ve found your prospect, secured the client… now what? Retain them! At SWISH Sales Coaching, we only consider a sale successful if they purchase again because this means that we have not only provided them with a valuable product or service but they have enjoyed the customer journey. It’s also important to mention that attracting a new client can be more than 5x more expensive than retaining a current one.

Here are our five PRACTICAL steps for customer retention:

1)      MULTIPLE RELATIONSHIPS

 When you’re selling a product or service, you’re typically looking for the decision-maker within an organisation, which makes sense, although what this theory is challenging you to do is build relationships with various people within the organisation, just in case this person moves on.

 Fact: People are loyal to people, not to businesses. This theory serves two key purposes, the first being that if the person moves on to another company and requires a service similar to yours, you have an easy foot in the door from your withstanding relationship. Alternatively, if they do move on, you have not burned any bridges with the existing company as you have relationships with the remaining staff.

 2)      CONVENIENCE & EXPERIENCE

 People buy for two reasons, convenience and experience. How convenient and easy is it for your prospect to engage with your product or service? Are you creating low barriers of entry?

 You need to critically think about how accessible your product is to your target market, as well as how you can add the ‘one-percenters’ to separate you from your competitors and provide a next-level experience.

3)      KEEP YOUR PROMISES

We often hear “over-promise and over-deliver” as a typical sales spiel, although we think that you should always allow yourself room to WOW your clients. So always promise what you know you can achieve and attempt to over-deliver each time.

For example, if you tell a client that you are going to call them at 2pm, don’t become lazy and call at 2:01pm. This will make you look reliable and efficient, plus they’ll be less likely to jump ship when a competitor arises because you kept your promises.

 4)      SELL A VISION

 Humans genuinely want to be a part of a company’s journey, whether their own or a company they engage with. Tell your clients what your cause is, how far you’ve come and where you intend to go. If you can communicate to people why you are doing it, you can also give them updates on how close you are to achieving that.

5)      TAKE RESPONSIBILITY!!

People don’t expect you to be perfect, but they do expect you to be there when things go wrong. Humans are not perfect, we all make mistakes, but it’s how you handle the mistakes that will determine the relationship between yourself and the client. You can show this by asking for feedback and demonstrating you’re always willing to improve – just own it!

By reading this article we know that you want to increase your rate of customer retention, by providing a customer journey that is going to produce high customer satisfaction. To learn even more about customer retention and excelling in the overall sales journey. Discover more of our proven methods of sales training, sales coaching, and sales courses.  No matter if you are located in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast or anywhere in the world, we are able to assist in providing the most innovative ethical sales training.

Related Tag: Sales Representative Courses