Losing Customers? Here are the 9 Things your Business is Doing Wrong

Any business would be in grief after hearing the news from the sales team that they are “losing customers --- in huge proportion”. After working so hard and patronizing every new trend, when businesses fail to retain lifelong customers and bring in the new one - it feels similar to a shockwave.

Do you know out of 100, around 87% of customers love to shop around, while only 13% of customers stay intact to a particular brand for long? 

Customers are the most important component of any business’s sales cycle, especially the loyal & engaging one’s (who won’t sway even when the competitors are walking the extra mile). Most of the time, businesses don’t realize that their small or tiny gap in their services can pinch like a needle to the customers and provoke them enough to move to other brands who care and won’t hurt them at all.

Many businesses like you must be thinking - “we have dotted great discounts, the delivery of our products is on time, prices are reasonable” then why are we facing customer loss day by day? The answer is, winning and losing customers is not just dependent on well-timed delivery, discounts, or low prices, there are a lot of unlooked factors that decide the customer’s fate.

Here in the following article, you will learn about 9 unlooked things your business is doing wrong, and as a result, why it is causing you a major loss of customers along with tips on how to turn the tides in your favor.

9 Reasons why Companies Lose Customers + How they can Reverse the Situation!

Here are 9 things you have been doing wrong and which in return are causing you to lose customers in great ratio, along with ways how you can treat it before it costs you shutting down a business.

1. Poor customers handling or services
2. Your product failed to show the value
3. You follow conventional sales techniques
4. Your brand reflects inconsistency 
5. You are selling in every layer of communication
6. Your online presence is too slim or next to nil 
7. You aren’t keeping an eye on products/services quality
8. Never or slowly meeting to customer’s expectations
9. You don’t incline towards great innovation

 1. Poor customers handling or services

Does your business focus on customer services that much? If not, it seems like either you are too confident about your product and think that it will never collapse or you just are not bothered about the queries customers might have while/after using your product or service.

Do you know 90% of customers after finding faults in your customer service will not come complaining towards you, instead, they will move on to some other brand?

90% is a lot, if you have been avoiding placing great focus on customer services, here is what you can do to improve it:

• Invest in composing and supporting a dedicated customer handling team.
• Reach out to customers who want to reach out to you.
• Respond to the customers immediately or in the shortest cycle possible.
• Practice keeping the tone as empathetic, calm, and understanding.
• Reach out to their problems before they say so - via surveys, feedback form or so.
• If your business is accused of some mistake, admit it, and work on its solution.

Next time customers ring you! Don’t keep them waiting!

2. Your product failed to show the value

 Whenever customers pay for a product, they expect it to serve them some great value. Most businesses fail to draft that value within their product. As a business, 

• You should articulate some USP that sets you apart from the competition and makes you the right fit to be at the top of the customers' buying choices.
• Make customers realize what significant value they get on each dollar spendings when they buy from you or how your product is made to treat the pain-points of diverse audiences.

For instance, if you sell hair oil, and you  pitch your customers like “Buy our XYZ hair oil, do you think they will buy? You need to think deep and point out some USP of that product like it is good for treating hair fall, requires a small drop to apply, has properties of natural herbs and things like that. Have a product that creates value for the users.

3. You follow conventional sales techniques

Are you still following conventional sales techniques without personalization and understanding customers’ desires? If your sales techniques are just all about manipulating and coaxing sales, you are yourself chasing away your customers. 

You need to:

• Stop enforcing your product on customers, rather take time to learn what kind of products they want. Just create that product with the customer’s desired usability and utility and for rest let the buyers decide whether they want to stay or not.
• Form a relationship of trust & harmony - be someone who attends their concerns.
• Don’t put aggressive sales pitches, have honest interactions & communication with them, and exchange what value you aim to deliver and what they wish to get.

4. Your brand reflects inconsistency

“Brand consistency means having brand image, value, and messaging being consistent or not too frequent to change across all channels. Businesses that go with consistent presentation of their brand are likely to see an increment in revenue generation by 33%.”

Brands who are inconsistent in their approaches & functions are fated to lose customers. If you as a business are not keeping consistency in your brand behavior, product quality, services, sales techniques, how can you expect your customers to be consistent with you? Nobody wants to deal with an impulsive brand that does not have a clear and ongoing business trait.

As a business:

• Ensure to stay continued in your quality services.
• Don’t add or subtract new processes, sales techniques too quickly and abruptly.
• Stay firm with your customers’ needs and fulfill them with consistent behavior & approaches.

Imagine your product’s quality declining, you placed great discounts on new customers and when they arrived, you discarded the offer, you stopped delivering on time - do you think all these inconsistent traits can help you rope in loyal customers?

5. You are selling in every layer of communication

Businesses think every communication or interaction level as an opportunity to just sell the product. Most businesses carry a pitch in every communication with their customers in order to just sell them the product. Customers don’t align with a brand that is too self-centered in discharging its services highly.

Customers only form long-term loyalty with a brand with whom they feel relatable and can trust to buy from. For building that trust with your customers:

• Don’t make every communication about just pitching them for sales - know what they want and what they expect from your brand.
• Show them how your brand is helping them in their pursuits.
• Keep a follow-up on them to know where your product is falling short in winning their trust and expectations.

5. Your online presence is too slim or next to nil

“81% of customers search for a brand’s online website before making a purchase.

Are you just running a mom-and-pop shop with an inoperative website that’s more static and looks like a catalog? 

Today’s customers are smart and anticipate to deal with the online available businesses only. If you are going little with your online presence, this could be one of the major reasons why customers are cutting the chord with your business and flying to other brands who serve digital readiness - round the clock.

To stop people from running away, make sure:

• You have a custom & responsive CMS website with features, functionalities, information, navigation your customers of today desire.
• You have dedicated marketing strategies in play to engage, entertain, inform, and convert users into buyers over multiple digital platforms.

7. You aren’t keeping an eye on products/services quality

Do you follow a streamlined procedure to evaluate your product/services quality? The companies who don’t keep a strong & detailed eye on product quality are those who fail to satisfy consumers at all.

You should:

• Introduce a process to evaluate the quality of your products.
• Know the reasons or areas where customers are dissatisfied with your products.
• Be self-critical and find the faults or deviations within your product.
• If you find shortcomings in your products - treat it before time.

Quality is an important aspect that keeps the customers for a lifetime!

8. Never or slowly meeting to customer’s expectations

“Do you know 72% of consumers & 89% of business buyers state that they expect businesses to understand their expectations & unique demands, and while 66% of consumers claim they will switch to other brands if they are treated like some number of customers rather than an individual?”

Customers simply abhor businesses that do not or slowly correspond to their needs or expectations. Ignoring what customers expect in your products/services can cost your business to lose customers in big numbers. The customers’ expectations from any brand can be diversely around:

• Quality with quantity
• Affordable pricing
• Well-timed delivery or stock availability
• The product matching to what promised in advertisement or display
• And more…

Just chalk out what your customers expect highly from your brand, and put all possible forces in play to meet the diverse & easy-to-fulfill expectations of your buyers - faster before they deviate to other brands.

9. You don’t incline towards great innovation

“84% of customers say it is very important that the company they buy from to be  innovative in some sort.”

Companies that flourish and don’t face the loss of customers are the ones who constantly stay proactive with the innovation according to dynamic trends. The innovation can be in product, processes, or services. 

Innovation means adding something new or altering the present thing or situation for a betterment. As a business, you should scrutinize each growing day and see where your brand lacks - in terms of changing times, competition, and customers demand.

You can:

• Tweak your products or services at any scale as per modern times.
• Add new & improved processes that customers expect.

Don’t hit a plateau by not extending your visions, products & service patterns. Just timely see what customers anticipate and focus on serving that.

Conclusion!

This was a simplified and accurate guide on 9 crucial reasons why companies lose customers and how to make it right. 

We just discussed the 9 mistakes your businesses might have been committing, in return which could be costing you as losing customers. To retain customers, keep a great focus on customer’s expectations, stay active to customer’s queries/feedbacks, reinvent the wheel of products or services or processes,  welcome change or innovation, go digital by leveraging all digital platforms.