To retain Your Customers retain Your Employees First

Do you retain employees as a critical part of your customer retention strategy? Or, are your (especially) front line employees considered to be disposable? Easily-replaced commodities in a numbers game?

I recall a bunch of client conversations I had as a sales newbie. Here I am, trying to get an in-person appointment with someone else’s former client. Their existing client base, of course, became my newbie client base. Because former sales people are fired when they do not made their numbers, right?

Initially, each business leader I pursued was reluctant to meet with me, in person. Why? Over and over again, the conversation went something like this: “Why should I believe what you are telling me? Your company is like a revolving door, especially when it comes to retaining sales reps.”

My reply always was this: “You should believe what I am telling you. Because, for a change, I am not trying to sell you anything, so I can make my numbers. I am trying to retain your business. That is something else, entirely.”

Do I need to tell you I had one of the highest customer retention rates, year over year?

Does your own organization’s employment pool resemble rush hour traffic moving through a revolving door? Or, can your customers count on working with the same people, over time, to drive customer success and customer retention?

Which scenario do you think creates a loyal and retained customer base?

Regardless of the size of your organization, retain employees. Why? In order to create the aggregated and impactful customer experiences which drive customer retention.

Otherwise, newly hired employees may perform well, functionally. However, these newbies do not quite grasp how “what I do” connects up with “what the rest of my colleagues do” on behalf of serving stakeholders and clients. Plus, new hires may not even know the names, job titles and functions of internal resources critical to creating a high rate of performance.

When employees keep churning and turning over, there is no continuity of knowledge across departments. What is the human capital value of maintaining that strategy?

1. First, how can you best serve customers, when employees continuously start over, and over and over? Consider how employee churn reflects on leadership and management style.
2. Next, what happens when your customers end up training new employees on how to do their jobs because onboarding is ineffective and inefficient? (Because existing customers can know your processes better than your newbies do).
3. Then, when new hires must wait for months until the next training period, they get a clear message that they are considered a flight risk. Which translates into not being worth the immediate training investment.

Your customer base may not be churning right now. However, they may be looking for other alternatives because you do not value retaining employees. Consider these next steps.

• Download my new checklist and worksheet: Six Professional Development Targets to Hit each Month.
• Book a 45-minute strategy session with me. Gain clarity, focus and tactics to better serve yourself, so you can better serve your customers.
• Subscribe to my blog. Share your email address in the red box in the right column of this blog. Never miss another insightful post.
• Planning your next corporate or association meeting? Engage me to deliver one of my speaking programs or workshops for a refreshing change from the same-old stuff. Catalyze your mindset and skill sets!

Babette Ten Haken brings her One Millimeter Mindset™ speaking programs and workshops to organizations and associations, like yours, who want to leverage collaborative business models and profitable workforces to retain the customers you work so hard to win. Her programs catalyze communication and collaboration between disparate or siloed groups, especially in industries with technically-focused stakeholders.

She is a member of SME, ASQ, SHRM and the National Speakers Association. Her playbook of communication hacks, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com. Babette’s speaker profile appears on the espeakers platform.

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