B2B companies always want the best for their clients, present, and past. What business in its right mind wouldn’t want to make client satisfaction a centerpiece of its operations, anyway?
That’s right: None. So, it makes sense to keep your clients happy with your products and services.
But, like everything else today, happiness is relative and not all prospects are happy campers to start with. There will always be prospects that are disappointed in your service and that’s just depressing for companies that put a lot of effort in developing solutions and much more in marketing them.
So, what should be the best way for dealing with such customers? Obviously, there’s nothing much you can do except to let them go, right? Well, what if we say you can use them to make essential improvements?
Like what they all say, “If life gives you lemons, you make lemonade – and generate high quality leads for your product.” Not the exact quote, but it drives home the point to turn missed opportunities into workable marketing solutions.
At times, companies should get their way with unhappy prospects, so we would like to give you a good glimpse of what you can do to (err) exploit them.
Get Informed
There are reasons why your prospects are unhappy in the first place. And knowing these reasons is one step towards making the necessary adjustments.
Rather than ignore complaints and other such negative feedback from them, take these into the heart and pinpoint specific problems in your operations. You can never win back such customers, but their inputs should inform you on what needs fixing and tweaking.
Related: The Callbox Guide in Handling Bad Reviews
Take criticisms seriously
An unsatisfied customer may seem insignificant to a large B2B brand, but he or she has a lot to say about certain issues that are not on your radar.
In most cases, you are so unaware of what’s going on in your business operations that you would be ignoring issues that have crucial implications, revenue-wise. In this case, you should be able to engage unsatisfied customers and ask for any opinions, however angry they seem to be.
Related: Re-activate the Interest of Lapsed Customers to your Company
Act like the Superman to your Lex Luthor
Like it or not, having an unhappy client in your pipeline can be advantageous if you play your cards right. What that means is that you should be able to act quickly on problems that arise at any given time.
Get this: A COO expresses his discontentment with a certain product he bought from you. A complaint is obviously in order and you will have to send your best rep to handle the damage control as soon as possible. Once you have set in place a solution, your prospect will eventually be impressed by how quickly you are able to act. At the end of the day, that unhappy customer will have a robust reason to stay on board.
The moral of this is that complaints can essentially put you in a more advantageous position to grab hold of customers. It is only a matter of establishing an attentive and steadfast customer service system. When it comes to maintaining a good pool of important clients, nothing can beat a 24/7 troubleshooting hotline which never fails to make up for certain issues.
Related: Building Tremendous Credibility and Make Clients Refer You
Tweak your prices
Sometimes, you will have to make compromises just to keep high-value customers within the pipeline. And this, of course, involves giving rebates and other price-related solutions.
Most prospects are quick to point out that so-and-so a product is way too expensive for their budgets. While maintaining your profit margins remains to be a priority, you should also look at how potentially valuable the prospect would be towards your enterprise. Here’s What to Tell Clients Who Say “You’re too expensive.”
Getting face-to-face with a company that already has a good standing in its industry is basically a one-way ticket to a goldmine, so you have to compromise just to get it on board – even if it means making a few deductions from your products’ price tags. For all you know, that particular client will add to your company’s portfolio of big-time players.
Still, you also need to understand the implications of reducing the price to this end. If it turns out to be too unreasonable, then sorry to say you have better chances elsewhere.
