Whilst I fully accept that it's everyone's collective responsibility to optimise the customer experience and reduce attrition rates, I believe it's essential for organisations to develop a clear and robust retention strategy. I remember being asked to devise and implement a retention strategy for a professional services business. Renewal rates had been on a downward trend for several years, so I was keen to understand why this was happening. When I sat down with the account managers, I discovered that most of their time was dedicated to contacting clients in the last six months of their contract and attempting to secure their renewal. Unfortunately, by the time they reached out to their clients, it was usually too late - most of them had already made the decision to either stay or move on, so their efforts had no meaningful impact on the renewal rates. Additionally, there was no attempt to win back lost business or address the root cause of customer dissatisfaction. It was very clear that there were rudimentary gaps in their approach and a radical overhaul was required, so I created a five-stage strategy covering Attention, Detection, Prevention, Retention and Redemption. It was a major programme of work but, crucially, it had the full backing of the SLT and within twelve months we'd reversed the trend and renewal rates started to climb dramatically. I've summarised the five stages on a slide - I hope you find it useful. I've also included a mind map showing the five stages and their linked activities. Please use the following link to check out my full article on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/client-retention-strategy-mind-gap-jon-stephenson

1. Client Retention – a strategy to mind the gap!
Jon Stephenson
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/stephensonjon
• Pay attention to your performance: identify, measure, and track all cancellations
– categorise cancellation reasons as product, service, market, or outside your control
• Develop a set of detection measures for warning signals, and build a risk matrix
– identify whether clients are satisfied buyers, passives, happy wanderers, or dealers
• Embed a prevention mindset addressing the root causes of client dissatisfaction
– ensure your sales process manages client expectations, and deliver what you promise
• Focus retention conversations on upselling & cross-selling
– introduce risk-based commission schemes and a tailored contact strategy
• Create client redemption plans to win back their business
– request structured feedback to determine their reasons for non-renewal

2. Client Retention – a strategy to mind the gap!
Cancellation
Reasons
Outside
Control
Market
Service
Product
Measurement
Performance
1.
ATTENTION
Satisfied
Buyers
2.
DETECTION
At Risk
Matrix
Measurement Dealers
Passives
Happy
Wanderers
Measurement
Commission
Feedback
5.
REDEMPTION
Win Back
Strategy
4.
RETENTION
Contact
Strategy
Measurement
Method
Upselling
Cancellation
Strategy
Commission
3.
PREVENTION
Contracts
Product
Sales
Service
Type
Length
Pricing
Margin
Delivery
Improvement
Measurement
At Risk
Strategies
Recovery
Solution
Based Selling
Commission
Onboarding
Enhancement
Development
Jon Stephenson
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/stephensonjon