Big corporations have a myraid of data tools at their dsiposal, and if I were a betting man, I would be that one of them is a formula for what it costs their company to replace a long time customer. I am sure someone at Central Comm know the answer to that, but I am not that person. I do, however, know that employee retention contributes to the stability of a company.
I know that it costs a company money to lose a productive, successful employee. It also costs money to recruit, train and bring an employee up to speed. So I can only imaginet it’s a similar scenario when we lose a customer. Not only do we have to replace that lost customer, we also have to add enough customers in addition, to make the sales quota we need in order to stay profitable.
Should the customer who just left be one who has several types of accounts with us, the impact will be even more severe. From where I stand, yes it’s important to bring in new customers, but I think it’s also very important to take good care of the customers we already have. I think it’s important to our company as a whole to do that.
For the most part, we all get assinged certain customers and over time we begin to build a relationship with that customer. They get to know, like and trust us and we get to do the same. It’s a winning situation because we get to work with a good customer with whom we have an established relationship, and we are able to keep them as a customer. And, they get to keep us as their provider.
So the next time you are having a rough day, and one of your long time customers gets a little grumpy, take a deep breath, and instead of coming back at them with a snappy remark, perhaps saying something like, you know, we have worked together for quite a while, I want to do whatever I can to help, so tell me, what is the problem and I will take care of it for you. And I want to thank you for being such a great customer for so long.
It could back fire, that’s true. But if you mean it, then you may take a grumpy, dissatisfied customer and turn them into your best customer.
Central Comm