It's alarming when you see your company's client attrition go up. But there's no reason to panic. Learn how you can turn attrition into retention and secure your business.
Some time ago, we worked with a media-based creative agency that was facing severe issues. In particular, they had valuable result-driven work completion rates but client dissatisfaction was growing.
Their attrition reached a worrying 35% and it needed to go down quickly.
Once we started working with them, it became apparent that they didn't have a process to clearly define what their client should expect, the value, and how they'll measure the provided results. They also lacked clear check-ins for what was supposed to be done for their client throughout the campaign.
We worked with this agency to create a process of client deliverables and communication that will ensure their client's satisfaction.
The starting point was the internal meetings that had the purpose of ensuring the operations team understood everything that was discussed during the sales process.
Another thing we introduced was the weekly check-ins with the agency's clients for progress updating. Once the agency made sure there was an understanding of the deliverables and when the client could expect them, there were no issues with client expectations.
Finally, the agency implemented a post-campaign meeting with clients to review what was done and get feedback.
These steps ensured better communication between the agency and the client and significantly improved client satisfaction.
Once they incorporated the whole process into their business, their attrition went down seven-fold to less than 5%.
Is your company suffering from high client attrition? If so, don't worry.
There are several ways you can make the attrition lower and keep it at that low point. In this article, you'll learn about four tips that will help you to do just that.
Tip #1. Communicate Proactively
Communication with your client is crucial for building trust and satisfaction. But it’s best not to wait for a client to feel the need to contact you. Instead, you should reach out to them beforehand.
This proactive approach will send a message that you're committed and have their best interests in mind. It will demonstrate the fact that you want to help them get the most value out of your service.
To maximize client satisfaction, pay special attention to the message you're sending. Ensure it's relevant to the product or service they're using.
Remind your client to leverage every aspect of your service available to them and stay open for future communication. Your goal should be that your clients are utilizing every service that you offer that will help them accomplish their goals.
Tip #2. Prioritize Client Experience
Expect your clients to interact with your brand often. You want your client to interact with you often. The closer the relationship you can build with them, by offering an unrivaled client experience, it’s absolutely crucial to making them stay with you longer.
The best way to do this is through multiple client touch points, so it's vital that you understand what those are and how to optimize them.
It’s useful to create a concise client journey map and clearly define these touchpoints.
Keep in mind that as soon as a client has a negative experience with your brand, they might start looking at other options. So here are some key steps you can take to make your client experience as pleasant as possible:
- Personalize your client support, emails, and generic messages.
- Pay attention to the feedback you're getting and ask for more. Make sure to act on every relevant remark.
- Ensure your client onboarding process is the smoothest possible. Don't let them wait for your reply or leave them wondering about their next step.
- Actively search for areas with poor client experiences, analyze them, and improve constantly. There will always be an aspect that you could make better.
No business should underestimate the impact that client experience has on a company. It should be one of your main focus points at all times.
Tip #3. Educate Your Clients
A crucial reason why you're seeing higher attrition might be because your clients aren't fully aware of your offer. In fact, this misunderstanding was at the core of the issues the agency had with its clients that we talked about earlier.
To avoid facing the same complications, you should ensure that your clients understand every relevant detail of your service. Further, they should have a clear picture of your offer from day one. If your clients do not understand how your service will impact their ability to accomplish their goals, and the value you provide your sales process has failed.
Transparency about your values, service and the benefits your clients have is paramount in keeping them satisfied. To this end, it would be wise to have extensive documentation, video showcases, and other resources always available to your clients.
Quality client support will play a very significant role in this step. Your client should be able to receive assistance with little effort on their part.
Tip #4. Focus on Your Best Clients
While it might be your first instinct to focus your attention on keeping every client on board, that approach could be lacking. You can offer incentives to those likely to leave you, but you should make sure doing so will bring you a better profit.
After all, although you want to reduce attrition, the main goal for your business should be to maximize profits.
In that sense, turning your focus towards your best clients would be a much more beneficial decision. Concentrate on those clients most likely to respond to your methods positively. You can then dedicate more energy to enhancing their experience and turning them into loyal returning clients.
Transform Attrition Into Retention
While higher client attrition can seem frightening, it's, in fact, a good signal that your business needs some improvements. It can even become the best incentive to develop how your company handles business and communicates with clients.
Crucially, once you implement all of the methods to improve your client satisfaction, those that remain with your company will more likely stick around for longer. Building up excellent communication processes could also attract more new clients and help retain them.
It's a detailed process that might seem complicated. So if you need assistance, you shouldn't hesitate to ask for help.
If you can’t do it alone, or if you need more guidance, let us know. Contact us to book your profitability accelerator call and see how we can work together to optimize your business.
