5 Rules for Exceptional Customer Retention (for ad-agencies)
More than 80% of advertising agencies fail to retain their clients. Sales is hard… but they are like a romance. Retention is much harder… like a relationship, you have to till the field every single day.
In theory, every successful customer relationship stands on the pillars of mutual respect and profitability. But when theory meets the hard realities and pressures of the day to day… it gets quite hard and sometimes turn quite ugly.
So I have written 5 rules that you can follow to structure your efforts and build long-lasting and profitable customer relations. InshaAllah. (If you are not in the mood to read, you can watch the video below too).
RULE 1 — INSIST ON MUTUAL RESPECT FROM DAY ONE
You… an ad-agency, a team of experts have received a signed contract. That means your client knows that you know what you talked about. Maintaining this rapport is the first rule of good client relationship. You are the marketing expert… you are the person who should have a clear point of view on how to bring is customers for your clients. And you should not leave the first meeting until everyone is aligned on each others areas of expertise.
Note: Please don’t get greedy and give ideas to the client to simply backrupt them. If you did that to me even once… I would sue you!
RULE 2 — FREQUENT EXPECTATION MANAGEMENT
The emphasis here is on the word ‘frequent’. The reality of life the ad-agency business is that every single day is about deadlines. If you or your client is doing something that might compromise the deadline. It is your job to pick up the phone, bring up the issue, talk through it… And reset expectations. I have seen projects get guttered simply because expectations were not set and reset and reset again. Simply because people were afraid to do it or just lazy.
Note: Don’t be the above coward/fool.. please!
RULE 3 — SOLVE FOR THEIR BUSINESS OBJECTIVES
No expert is hired to be told what to do and to be spoon fed. For ad-agencies… being told what to do is equal to becoming the client’s pet or slave (whichever you might fancy today?).
You MUST keep coming up with solutions to sove for your clients business objectives. I personally think this should be done monthly (minimum). Otherswise, the law of “Out of sight is out of mind” comes into play and you lose credibility.
Just remember… Your Clients’s Bottomline Runs Your Bottomline
RULE 4 — FEARLESS NEGOTIATION
Do you think your client will let you go if you negotiate hard? Do you think its that easy. Do you think he/she believes it is easy?
Get this my love… nothing will happen.
Infact, if you don’t negotiate hard, you short-sell yourself and you loose resspect. The fact is, you are in this game to make money. Nothing is for free!!!
Sometimes you do give a favour. But I recommend that you give the favour with an invoice which clearly announces the original price of the service and the discount you are giving. And tell you client that you are putting your neck on the like for HIM/HER. Let it be a strong, unadultered and clear communication… just so that it doesn’t happen too often.
RULE 5 — EYE ON THE BOTTOMLINE
In the service industry, you are selling the mental capital of your people… measured in hours. Therefore… If you lose track of your hours, you lose track of your bottomline and if you lose track of your bottomline… then you my friend need to be fired!
ALL RIGHT… so in a nutshell…
If you ensure mutual respect from the outset, frequently re-alig on expectations, give ideas to improve the clients’ business results,negotiate hard, and never lose sight of the profit margins. You will become a super hero.
That’s the gist of my experience so far.
What about you?
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