They’re nearly universal truths: competition is fierce and loyalty ain’t what it used to be. Almost every prospective client we talk to these days has a recent and painful example of losing a key customer – or several. It’s particularly difficult when the breakup call comes as a shock.
We talked to multiple senior leaders across various B2B industry sectors about their responses when they learn that a customer is shopping for alternatives, and the stories all sounded something like this:
- Ring the alarm bell
- Send a team of senior people and the account manager to meet with their customer counterparts
- Listen to the concerns, gain whatever competitive intelligence they can, and ask how the business can be saved
- Get all the key internal players in a room to share what’s known about the customer’s concerns, the competitive offer and put an action plan in place
- Return to the customer and lay out the corrective action plan, with assurances to prioritize that customer’s needs, and often – a revised (lower) price
Hope for the best
If that’s how everyone else does it, we’d suggest showing up differently. Make sure your next move makes an impression. Take a distinctive, robust and systematic approach.
How E.G. Insight Can Help
Using a customized version of our CRp® feedback process – we’ll quickly equip your team to conduct a series of individual interviews with your most important customer contacts. We’ll consolidate the findings, highlight the critical issues, quantify those contacts with the highest and lowest confidence in your organization, and make any recommendations we can offer to save the account.
Or, if more appropriate we’ll utilize our team of seasoned executives to conduct the customer interviews on your behalf.
