Top 5 Ways to Keep Your Clients Happy.

There are thousands of websites, blogs, illustrations and presentations on the internet that tell you how to attract new clients. While these are useful, you might as well not bother unless you can retain them, as when the only thing you can focus on is the new business coming in through the door, then you’ve really got problems.

So this week, we will look at ways to keep those new clients that you retain.

1. Don’t take them for granted. Ok, so you’ve signed them up, they’re paying their bill. This doesn’t mean that you can start getting frustrated with them if they’ve got a problem, or are taking up more of your time than you’d anticipated because they don’t understand something.
2. Don’t be patronising and sulky, because they’ll simply go elsewhere. Listen to them if they’ve got a problem. I personally will never use Vodafone again. This is because I used to have a mobile internet dongle that was faulty, and reported to Vodafone that I’d used more internet than I had, and I knew this because their own software on my PC told me I’d used less than Vodafone’s said. Instead of listening and agreeing to check the dongle, the man in the shop simply said that because it was not beyond the laws of physics for me to have falsified the software readings (eh?) that he wasn’t going to believe me. Even after they agreed to send it for testing and it had shown that I was right, they still took months to refund the extra money. The moral of this story, is that if you forget that your clients are not tied to you forever, then you’ll be reminded when they leave. Try and remember this before they do.
3. Keep in contact. Where’s the harm in occasionally arranging an hour every few months to talk about things? Even if it’s “how’s life?”, although ideally it’ll be to show what you’ve done for them and where you can go from there. Some people may be happy to sign you up and forget about you, but sometimes, some businesses for whatever reason need to shed costs massively. If you just plod along without so much as a hello, then you’re just another bill at the end of the day. Show your face and your results, and you’re an invaluable asset to their business.
4. Remember to under-promise and over-deliver. If you think a project will probably take 5 days to do, say it will be 7 or 8. That way, you’ve built in some spare time if there’s any delays, and you’ll delight your client if you deliver it early.
5. Send a card/bottle of wine at Christmas. It’s only a small gesture, but it’s the small things like this that people appreciate. However, if you send a card, make sure you hand-write it. I don’t care if you have a hundred clients, because nothing says “shallow or thoughtless appeasement gesture” than a mass-printed card. However, a nice hand-written message will go down well.