Client & Associate Retention: Slowing Down to Speed Up 

Build a thriving business at any scale with sustainable fundamentals, not chasing the squirrel

Originally written by Graham Peelle on Medium, July 20, 2023 Founders, companies, and organizations see challenges and problems all of the time, but what do they do about them? Do they push them aside, ignore them, form a project team, special initiative, or make it a focus area?

Companies sometimes ignore issues, and often take action to solve problems, but do they actually work towards understanding the root cause of the problem, and solving it, or simply patch an easier straightforward target that is the popular or a more “sellable” option to leadership? Companies are often not taking action or trying to solve the wrong problem, and it happens repeatedly, over and over, wasting time and money, and potentially harming the business.

Value your current business and talent, with talent retention or customer retention. Yes, the principles are quite similar and you can align your organizational mindset and culture at a high level. It’s time to form clear aligned strategies focused on your customer retention, and talent retention. Most companies understand and want to to have a plan and want to execute in both areas, but not all know how to build the customized plan for their needs.

What drives customer and talent retention? Don’t over-complicate it, but you must dig below the surface. It’s about delivering on the wants and needs of each group, while most organizations tend to deliver a something, but don’t truly validate if it’s what our customers or talent truly want. Many of us make assumptions, which turn into investment decisions, sometimes costly decisions. Like giving a raise or retention bonus, and assuming that will improve retention, or adding a service and assuming that will hold on to your customer. Understand the challenges, and understand the solution and its impacts, never assume you understand the pattern and impacts.

We need to change the culture and listen to our audience to determine what our talent wants, and what our customers want. And not at face value, but taking the real feedback, reporting, and facts, to develop a strategy and planning the execution. Data driven retention strategy.

Below are a few highlights on how to understand what your customer or talent want, in order build a true Retention Strategy:

1. Collect Evidence from your current customers (or talent from that perspective). This can be direct feedback, market intel, surveys, reports, facts, data, etc. During this step, it’s important to remove your preconceived notions and judgments about what’s important to your own company, versus what your audience wants.

2. Organize your findings into actionable analysis, and where possible validate your analysis with a sampling of your audience.

3. Collaboration within your organization to educate and align on the path forward.

4. Build Vision, including a short-term and long-term picture based on your findings and aligned to your mission.

5. Communication & Culture involves making it part of you every day a go activities even if it is a large dedicated project or initiative.

6. Execution & Evaluation is focused on implementation of your strategy, monitoring data and outcomes, and making any specific targeted adjustments as necessary.

Whether it be retention of talent or customers, not all companies are ready to form this strategy as part of our core business and excuse on it. You need to make it your core, or get the help necessary. The demands of everyday business will consume any organization that doesn’t embed this into its culture. It’s time to clear the clutter, reflect on what’s a priority for your organization, and take the time to weed through excuses, reasons, justifications, and road blocks thrown at us by our own teams or clients, to focus on achieving retention success. Reflect as a leader and get real with yourself with some organizational self-awareness.

Is it time for a change in your business? To compete in today’s landscape you must commit, focus, and iterate based on your fact-based intelligence, AND your gut. Level-up: Win new business AND retain your existing customers.Transform now to build your business of the future and create your biggest fans with your current client base. Choose both, don’t let your current clients down, uphold your promises to them and solidify your partnerships with a winning account retention stratgegy and execution. These delighted customers will effectively win your new business down the road — give them a reason to believe in you and support you.

Hopefully, this added a little value to your business or your career. Thank you for reading.

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