Handling Indifferent Business Clients
As a service provider your customers are your partners in business. Their contract sustains your business and your business supports their potential to grow and ability to interact with their direct customers. This means that their clients are your indirect clients. If your service causes your direct client to miss sales and experience revenue loss, your business will likely be replaced.
Even long-time clients have the potential to take their business elsewhere, particularly if the individual who initially contracted your organization is no longer a decision maker. As your clients’ companies grow and successors are put into place you must work to develop relationships at each transition. Clients who are disengaged from who you are and why your business was selected are more likely to do business with another organization they feel connected to. Financial advisors spend as much time seeking new accounts as they do courting the beneficiaries of existing accounts in an effort to curb leakage after the passing of the primary account holder. A similar phenomenon happens with other business sectors. Although the account has been with your company for a number of years, when a new decision maker is put into there is a possibility that your business will also be replaced if a relationship has not been established.
For indifferent customers, factors in who they do business with are things such as price, product availability, location of supplier, size of supplying organization, quality, etc. By working from a list of needs rather than a list of supplier relationships, indifferent customers are likely to go elsewhere when a better price, product, or local supplier becomes available. To combat this behavior, AYSC offers the following recommendations:
Maintain a Distinct Brand Promise
Ultimately, your brand’s promise should align with your customer’s needs. This is not to suggest that you change your promise to suit the needs of your customers. Rather, your business should ensure that what it is promising is valuable to the market you have identified as your customer base.
To move from “vendor” to “partner” in the eyes of your customer, your products and services must be useful, valuable, and strategic. Take time to learn about your customer’s business. Your company must provide more than your customer can provide for themselves. Identify their needs and business owners. Bring your clients new and innovative ideas on how they can utilize your services to enhance their deliverables. Doing this will build trust and increase impact between you and your clients.
Effective Communication
What does your last marketing report say about how, where, and when you have the greatest response from your clients? Even if industry standard is to send out a newsletter, if you are receiving higher engagement levels through Social Media use that as a platform for sharing news and ideas. Are email open rates higher when you offer a report or free download versus survey requests? All businesses desire greater customer engagement, but as a service provider it is important to remember that your clients have their own businesses to run. Your communications with them should be timely and valuable.
Consistent Delivery
In order to move accounts from indifferent to engaged, your company must be consistent in its delivery of service. Your brand must be identifiable from purchase to production. The delivery system, methods, timeframe, and associated cost must be maintained across platforms and customers. Empower your team to work consistently at upholding the company image as a best effort to providing consistent client service during every contact. By developing reliable internal systems and processes your clients will receive the same service each time.
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