It wasn’t the words, it was the sound in his voice that told me something was wrong.
During a recent phone conversation, a friend assured me everything was good in his life—with family and biz.
He said it. I heard it. Yet it didn’t ring true.
So when I politely nudged him, he finally admitted, “Jeff, I just lost a client. A big one. What did I do wrong?”
What if you, had asked me the same question? I’ll tell you, what I told him.
To give you a deeper insight and more on-target explanation, I need to obviously know more details. However, there’s a pretty good likelihood you blew it, in one or more ways.
So take a deep gulp. Be brutally honest. Review the following. And then you’ll know better than anyone else, where you goofed.
You may have lost a client if:
- You promised a lot, but under-delivered.
- You or you people were rude, uncaring or indifferent.
- You stopped listening, because you knew all the answers.
- You remembered the importance of customer or client acquisition, yet you forgot about the significance of satisfaction and retention.
- You forgot that individuals make decisions—and you began to take for granted or ignored the value in your relationships.
- Your product or service has declining value or quality.
- You stopped communicating in a timely and effective manner.
- Your client’s needs and expectations changed, but your strategies and solutions didn’t.
- You committed an ethical breach.
- You began to think you were selling a commodity with no differential competitive advantage, except a lower price.
- You missed deadlines and deliverables.
- Your customer found somebody else, who wasn’t doing 1 thru 11.
Are you in jeopardy of losing a customer or client?
If so, the time to take corrective action, is NOW!
By the way, a “lost” customer or client, may only be temporarily “misplaced.”
Where they are, really depends upon, where you are!
