Happy clients stick around longer and shout your praises to their network, friends, and colleagues.
We all know it’s far more valuable to maintain an existing client than to land a new client, so keeping our clients happy clearly benefits our bottom line. For a lot of CEOs and business leaders, having happy, well-cared-for clients is also an important core value.
But how do you know if your clients are truly happy? And how do you know how well you’re managing client relationships?
It can be hard to tell. Many CEOs assume that everyone is happy until a problem pops up or a client leaves.
Because we are always working on being more proactive than reactive, a “wait and see” approach isn’t going to cut it when it comes to monitoring, measuring, and improving client relationships and retention.
At Elevate, we’re passionate about building long-term, meaningful relationships, and we have developed a number of systems and strategies to support this priority.
Keep reading to see what mistakes you may be making in this area and what you can do to improve your own client relationships and retention!
5 client relationship + retention mistakes to avoid
You don’t always know when you’re making a mistake with your client relationships. You may have a client who doesn’t speak up, so you assume everything is working well, and then suddenly… they’re mad and ending their contract.
We’ve also seen many cases where client relationships aren’t prioritized because there is a set beginning and end to the work or project as opposed to an ongoing retainer. But even if you’re not meant to keep a client forever, you still want to ensure they have a positive experience so they speak highly of your business and recommend you to others when their work with you is complete.
Here are the top 5 client relationship and retention mistakes you want to avoid:
- Being reactive: This looks like waiting until there is a problem to try to solve it. Great client retention includes identifying potential issues while they are still small (or before they’ve even occurred) and solving them proactively.
- Being inflexible with your services or solutions: This happens when a client signs up for a service that isn’t the best fit or when they have a slightly unorthodox need or request to make a service work for them. Unnecessary inflexibility can kill a client relationship in a snap.
- Poor communication: Unclear, inconsistent, and closed communication leads to more unhappy clients than almost anything else.
- Only focusing on problems: Don’t forget to identify wins and celebrate the milestones and achievements with your clients!
- Failing to reflect: Whenever feedback is gathered or shared (whether it’s positive or negative), you and your team should spend time digging into the information and reflecting on what you can or should do differently in the future.
How to improve client relationships and retention
The number one way to improve client relationships is simply to care about the people you work with.
When you bring compassion, empathy, and a desire to serve to your work, your clients will naturally feel valued, appreciated, and supported. Making sure your team members and employees share these values is also an important part of building and maintaining a client-focused culture.
At Elevate, we work with a number of different CEOs, leaders, and organizations, which gives us a sneak peek into what’s working and what needs to change when it comes to client retention. We also prioritize this area in our own business, so we have a number of proven systems and smart strategies to help you!
- A 360-degree structure for internal communication + collaboration: Create meeting structures that include individual contributors and leadership across departments. This keeps teams connected and ensures important details aren’t missed.
- Proactive engagement with clients: Use Quarterly Action Plan meetings to collaborate with clients and supplement them with consistent check-ins to celebrate wins and identify opportunities for change.
- A flexible, growth-minded focus: Elevate encourages clients and team members to identify gaps and suggest improvements. This openness fosters innovation and satisfaction on both sides.
Automate and streamline your client retention processes
As you focus on improving your own client relationships and retention, there are platforms and software we highly recommend to automate the process where you can without losing the human connection and touch that matters most.
- Start with a CRM to automate as much as possible:
We recommend Dubsado! It's highly customizable and our MVP platform. We automate check-in emails, customize content per client, and use it to send branded proposals, forms, and questionnaires.
- Use a Project Management System to keep everyone on track:
We use ClickUp to manage client communication and internal notes like preferences and personal details. It ensures all departments stay aligned and responsive.
- Create custom Zaps to save time:
Zapier allows you to connect different tools and automate tasks. For example, we use it to schedule small treats like Starbucks gift cards for our clients.
If you need advice from a client relationship expert or help operationalizing your client retention efforts, you can always schedule a 1:1 Operations Call with our founder, Ashley Carlson.
We’re here to support you!