Michael Epps Utley 
Is your business losing clients, and you’re not sure why? This article reveals seven reasons people stop doing business with companies and what to do if your organization is experiencing them.
1. Mediocre Customer Service
Customer service begins with a consumer’s first touch point with your brand and continues through every interaction. It’s the primary reason most people choose to purchase goods and services from a company — or not.
Top salespeople know that serving clients is more than simply sealing the deal. It’s about building relationships with purchasers and connecting with them personally. Once your sales reps establish a genuine connection with consumers, they can better understand and serve them, offering more personalized product and service recommendations and service.
2. Hard-To-Understand Pricing
Unclear pricing is another reason customers stop doing business with companies. You understand the value your products and services deliver to customers. However, if your pricing doesn’t reflect that value to prospective buyers — or if it’s inconsistent or unclear — it can confuse them. It gives them a reason to seek solutions that deliver value at a fair price from a competitor.
The most successful organizations know they must view their products and services from a purchaser’s perspective. Always ask yourself: Will the people I’m targeting find the prices of the solutions we offer understandable, fair, and attractive, and will they continue to feel this way over time?
If you’re unsure, tiered pricing can be a smart pricing model. It provides opportunities for consumers to try things out at a cost level they feel comfortable with and scale up or down over time.
3. Poor Staff Training
Have you ever been ready to buy something, but it was clear that the salesperson did not understand the solutions they were selling, how they could benefit you, or how to communicate value effectively? Nothing is worse — or more frustrating — than dealing with a sales rep who lacks the proper training.
That’s why investing in ongoing sales training is critical for business success. Nothing is more wasteful to an organization than bringing in a prospective buyer through effective marketing only for them to not make a purchase because of a bad sales experience.
4. Over-Promising and Under-Delivering
Most people understand the value of living by the precept: Honesty is the best policy. This is especially true for selling. Sales reps should never hype an offering to the point that it likely fails to deliver what is promised.
Over-promising and under-delivering is a big mistake when it comes to customer satisfaction. It destroys trust quickly, making it likely customers will walk away from a brand. The best salespeople understand that customer trust must be maintained no matter what. When trust is gone, it’s usually impossible (and expensive) to gain it back.
5. Slow Response Times
In today’s fast-paced world, being slow won’t cut it for most people. Putting consumers on hold or taking too long to respond to their questions is a good way to lose customers. People turned off by slow service will move on to more responsive competitors.
That’s why it’s critical for businesses to invest in the latest technology, such as an automated knowledge base, to speed up service and response times to meet customer expectations.
6. Limited Personalization
Everyone loves that warm feeling when someone says their name and makes it clear they “get” them. That’s the feeling you must give your customers to let them know you and your sales and customer service reps care.
Impersonal interactions can leave the consumer feeling like they’re not important and that their problems don’t matter. This sentiment makes it easy for them to abandon one brand and move on to another, which should make personalizing the customer experience a priority.
Personalizing interactions with your brand doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. AI-powered customer service management (CRM) like Zoho, Zendesk, and Freddy AI give sales and service reps what they need at their fingertips to personalize all parts of the sales and customer service processes for their customers.
7. Avoiding Change
Industries are changing faster than ever, especially since the introduction of advanced technology and artificial intelligence (AI). Rapid change makes it necessary for brands to be flexible and open to evolving. This is true even if it requires abandoning what they’ve always done to meet buyer expectations.
Being resistant to change closes the door to potential sales and makes it that much harder to meet the needs of your current client base. To attract and retain buyers, businesses must adapt to the times and keep up with trends.
Retaining Customers: The Final Word
Losing customers can feel frustrating because, despite your hard work, consumers are rejecting your efforts. But losing clients doesn’t have to be the end for your organization. By leveraging the advice and heeding the warnings in this piece, you can gain and retain more customers than ever before.
