Wondering Why You’re Losing Clients? Clearly, It’s Time To Talk

Speech. It’s one of the key abilities that elevates we humans above all other species on our beautiful planet. Well, that and opposable thumbs – although there are several types of apes that could possibly rival us on that score! But the ability to talk really sets us apart. And we love doing it. We were first introduced to speech when our parents started talking to us in utero, and it was the start of our life-long love affair with communication. When communication is effective, it makes us feel validated and empowered. Being able to express our opinions, and air our thoughts and grievances, is liberating and healthy. And these days, thanks to the meteoric rise of Internet technology and social media, we have an almost unlimited number of ways in which to do so.

Until we don’t.

How frustrating is it when you want to get in touch with a company to follow up on an order, ask a question, check a detail, update your account information or a myriad of other possible scenarios, but you just can’t get hold of them? The phone just rings, website enquiries go unanswered and social media comments are ignored. How long would you stay a customer of a company that treats you like this? If you’re like most people, the answer is: not very long. Companies start losing clients the moment they stop valuing them. And making it hard for them to communicate with you is a sure-fire way to let them know their time simply isn’t important to you.

Losing The Plot Means Losing Clients Too

Your clients – existing and prospective – continually judge you by the experiences they’ve had with your service.  You may only get one chance to make a first impression, but you get multiple chances every day to make a good one – whether it’s for the first time, or the hundred and first. Ignore these chances at your peril. Talk may be cheap, but when your clients can’t talk to you, it could end up being very expensive.

And when we say very expensive, we mean it! According to Forbes, businesses lose around $62 billion every year through poor customer service alone! Of the top 10 reasons customers gave for leaving a company, not being able to talk to a real person on the phone, and being put on hold for too long, were right up there! Many of us might think that the humble telephone is an outdated way in which to communicate, but the truth us, over two-thirds of all customers contact a company by phone. Compare this to just three percent who use social media.

A survey conducted by New Voice Media revealed some very interesting statistics:

• 70% of customers call a business because they want a quick response.
• 45% thinks calling is the best way to resolve an issue.
• 55% resent not being able to speak to a person immediately.
• 49% dislike repeating the same information to multiple service agents.
• 42% hate being kept on hold.
• 39% find it frustrating to navigate multiple menus.

It all boils down to one thing: when your service is bad, you know losing clients is not far behind.

What Can I Do To Stop Losing Clients?

It’s not rocket science. You know how nice it feels to meet someone who’s easy to talk to. Well, why not make sure your company is like the business version of that person? Just be easy to do business with. Answer the phone. Check voicemails and emails several times a day – and try your best to respond within a couple of hours, especially if there are queries from your best customers.

It’s nearly five times less expensive to keep an existing customer than to acquire a new one. So why are you focusing so hard on sales and not so much on customer service? Business relationships are just like any other – they take effort to maintain, and they must be beneficial to both sides. So stay in contact with your customers, and make it easy for them to talk to you.

At Huge Connect, the clue is in our name. We’re big into connecting people. We offer always-on Internet connectivity and never-fail, cloud-based business telephony services that make talking to you as easy as, well, talking! With us, you will never have to worry about losing clients through poor communication technology.   So talk to us today about how we can help your customers talk to you.