Many people are aware that the single biggest factor in determining whether you get business out of a customer is the strength of relationship you have with the individual.

It is not the quality of your products, nor the pricing, but instead the relationship you have. If they like you they will be more likely to do business with you, and if they don’t like you, they will go out of their way to buy elsewhere.

So it is always disappointing when someone you have a good customer – supplier relationship with leaves. It can often be like starting again. But the tip is to find out where they are going to – especially if they are staying in a similar role. So now you have the existing organisation, and of course you’ll be looking to start again here, plus the new one.

Once they’re settled in, you then phone them with something like the following script ;

You : “You may not remember me, but my name is …….. and I used to talk to you about …… when you were at ABC Ltd.” To which they often reply ;

Them : “Of course I remember you, how are you ?” And now you’re away !

And my advice is even if you find out they’ve already left, you can still track them. Either you ask one of your other contacts within the customer company if they know where they went to. You have got other contacts haven’t you ?!

Or as a last resort try finding them on Google. This is of course much easier if they have an unusual name, but many of them will eventually pop up elsewhere.

Always work your contacts hard, and don’t easily give up on all those relationships that you’ve worked hard to build.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 1st, 2008 at 2:50 pm and is filed under Telephone Skills . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply