Book Helps BSCs To Retain Clients

“Never Lose a Customer Again” by Joey Coleman

"Never Lose a Customer Again" by Joey Coleman is a good reminder to all building service contractors of simple steps you can take to strengthen the bond between your company and your clients. For those of you who were fortunate enough to attend Coleman's presentation at the BSCAI Executive Management Conference in Denver earlier this year, the passion he put into the presentation is just as evident in the book.

Growing your business can be challenging, and in our industry, client retention is an absolute necessity in order to achieve continuous growth. With more than 20 years of experience in this business, one of the many things I have learned is that it takes time and effort to build lasting relationships with your clients. But if you and/or your team make some missteps out of the gate, you can quickly kill that opportunity for a long-term partnership.

Coleman's book provides many examples of practical things you can do, many of which require minimal time and/or cost to make sure you start off on the right foot with your new client.

Coleman does a great job of explaining the emotional roller coaster that a new client may go through during the buying phase and into the implementation phase/first 100 days of service. In order to optimize learning and takeaways, it's important to take the time to stop and complete the action items/questions Coleman poses at the end of several chapters. While the book is not specifically geared towards any specific business type, I found the tips and tactics he provides in the book simple to understand and fairly easy to implement.

There are eight primary phases of the customer experience that Coleman details in the book, starting with the "Assess" phase and ending with the "Advocate" phase, which is ideally where we would like all of our clients to be. He also provides examples of the different communication vehicles you can use with your client throughout these eight phases.

I believe this book would be a great read for members of your sales and/or operations teams that have anything to do with creating a positive customer experience. In addition, I feel that much of what is discussed in the book can also be applied to creating an exceptional employee experience — as we all have both internal and external "customers" in our business who we want to be "Advocates" for our business.

Pat Sullivan
President
MahlerClean
Brookfield, Wisconsin

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Joey Coleman has nearly 20 years of experience working with companies to improve customer retention and convert first-time clients into ardent supporters. Sharing his techniques through workshops, speeches and firsthand consulting, he emphasizes the first few months as essential to a lasting partnership.

While the first few weeks of any business relationship can have a honeymoon stage, looming concerns from the purchaser of no longer being a priority are often inevitable.

In "Never Lose a Customer Again" — published by Portfolio — Coleman identifies eight common emotions of early-stage customers and how businesses can prepare for different phases of the buying process to minimize apprehension.