Why are customers leaving?

There are many reasons why customers leave, and usually it isn’t for only one reason.

But have you asked yourself if your customer service is a contributing factor ?  Or maybe it’s the lack of customer service …

As a business owner, executive or manager of an organisation, how do you know if the customer experience is contributing to your customer defections ?

Some questions to ask yourself

Here are some basic questions to ask of yourself:

Look in the mirror. Do you see reality or fantasy?

• When is the last time that you spoke directly to a customer ?  How often do you do it ?
• How often do you visit with your front line staff ?  They are the ones that know your customers and your business.
• Do you listen to your customers and employees ?  Get honest feedback by being open, not by defending your company.
  • Remember, if they give you negative feedback, it’s because they care about your success.  Otherwise, they won’t bother.
• Have you tried being a customer of your company ?  Obviously, you need to do it it anonymously.  If you can’t, get a trusted friend to do it.
• Does your company do professional customer satisfaction surveys ?  Do you see the results and comments ?
  • What do you do with the results ?  Are any actions taken to improve areas of dissatisfaction ?
  • Do you communicate the results to your customers and the actions you’re taking to improve ?  Show them you care enough to communicate.
• Do you treat your employees like customers ?  Or do you treat them like cattle ?  Happy employees will do a much better job serving your customers.
• Finally, have you looked in the mirror ?  What do you encourage and ask for of your employees ?  Are you only looking at financial numbers for the quarter ?  If you never ask about and concentrate on customer service, don’t expect the people in your organisation to think it’s important.

Why should you ask yourself these questions ?  Simple, you are responsible.  There’s no point in blaming others, you are the leader; you have the responsibility of ensuring the

quality of service in your company, division or department.

When your customers are defecting, you don’t look for a scapegoat.  Look at what’s broken and fix it.  Blaming people will only destroy morale and make things worse.

Ultimately, you are responsible for customer defections. (I’m certain that this isn’t the message you wanted to hear …)  As Spiderman’s uncle said, “With great power comes great responsibility.”  You already have the power…

Doing these things won’t solve your issue with customer defections, but they are a good start in the right direction.  And, it’s really simple but it’s far from easy.  You may not like the results so ask yourself:  ”Do you want to live and deal with reality or fantasy?“

Finally, they’ll help you identify the causes but they may have nothing (or everything) to do with the quality of the service your company delivers.  You have to decide what is best for your company. No one else will do it for you.

Cheers!

Eric

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photo credit: jcoterhals