Good sales associates leave for a variety of reasons. It could be that they found a better opportunity, are making a shift that better fits their career goals, or other personal reasons that have nothing to do with you as a manager or your company culture.
Nevertheless, employee turnover is inevitable, and losing talented people will always have an impact on your business no matter what.
There are the demands on your time from investing in the hiring process to find a suitable replacement for them, the stress your remaining employees experience from taking on the extra workload, and an overall decrease in employee morale your entire team can experience after the loss.
However, one of the biggest challenges for leaders after losing a star employee is the potential loss in client relationships that associate has spent countless hours building. Are all of those great contacts and trusting relationships gone forever?
Of all the concerns you face as a business owner losing a key team member, this is one concern you shouldn't have to worry about. It's your business. The clients are yours. You pay your sales associates well to manage them, but at the end of the day, clients should stay part of your family even when their favorite sales associate leaves.
In this blog post, we'll cover how you can maintain the client relationships your sales associate has built even after they leave your business and how client management software like Clientbook can make the process even easier.
How to keep good clients when you lose a good sales associate
To make sure you keep good clients when you lose a valuable employee on your sales team, a few things need to happen. Let's go over the steps you can take before, during, and after the period of time your sales associate leaves.
Build your brand
Before your sales associate leaves, the first preemptive step you should take is to build your brand so it stands on its own. That way, clients build a relationship with your brand, not just an outgoing employee.
Successful companies ensure every message the client receives has their brand on it. Every email, holiday card, and phone call is branded. While a sales associate may be the face of your store, at the end of the day, what that client really experiences is your brand.
By building a brand experience that each of your sales associates can execute on equally, your clients will notice that consistency and stay loyal to your business—not an employee. And that makes the transition to a new sales associate much smoother and makes an employee quitting less upsetting.
Maintain control of the data
Next, as soon as you know a key employee is leaving—one that has access to a lot of client data—start the process of transferring control of that information immediately.
Ideally, all of the personal data on every client should reside and be managed from a central location that you control. You should have access to every note and announcement that goes out to clients. The last thing you need is a sales associate moving to a competitor and taking a truckload of clients with them.
If your client data isn't centralized and easily accessible to you, a critical task before that employee leaves is to gain control of that information. Ask them to share their contact lists, client notes, or anything else you might need from them before they leave.
Communicate the transition with your client
Finally, after your sales associate leaves, make sure you communicate that departure to the clients they work with closely—assuming your sales associate hasn't done so already.
Some clients may have a tough time with the transition, but having an honest conversation with them is important in ensuring that they'll still experience the same high-quality customer service they've grown accustomed to.
It's always hard when talented employees who know your clients' likes and dislikes leave, but if you've done your job right, that client information should be easy to access and any one of your sales associates should be able to pick up where your last one left off.
Never lose a client with Clientbook
While losing sales associates to a new career path is inevitable, losing a client doesn't have to be. With clienteling software like Clientbook, all of your client information can be housed in one centralized location, so no one associate owns important data.
Instead of a single sales associate texting a client from their personal phone number, all of your sales associates can text clients from a centralized dashboard. So when someone leaves your business, the client information they've gained stays behind.
Conclusion
When you lose a good sales associate, there's no need to say goodbye to the client information and relationships they've gained during their time with your business. By following the tips above and utilizing a clienteling tool like Clientbook, you'll never lose another client again.
If you're ready to see how Clientbook can help you organize your client data into one, centralized location, schedule a demo today.
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