Your Existing Customers

We often speak about creating a sales plan, building a sales strategy and networking for new referral sources. And with the changes in the industry and new companies always entering the marketplace, it is important to have a plan for looking under stones not yet touched — but that is not enough.

I am concerned that with the competitive nature of our business, we are not dedicating our efforts to ensuring that we keep the customers we have worked so long and hard to attract. Customers should never have the feeling they may be forgotten or that you are more interested in insurance company contracts or working with physicians with large practices.

What is your game plan for making sure you do not neglect your existing customers?

Here are some suggestions for keeping those long-term accounts happy:

• Review your sales call report and make sure you have not relegated those accounts to a sales call or meeting just when you get around to it. Place them on your sales call calendar and visit them regularly. Never take them for granted, because when you are not visiting them regularly, your competition may be doing just that.

  Nothing replaces a face-to-face meeting when you are looking to keep the customer! That will allow you to hear a complaint or a comment about your home care company before anyone else does.

• Remind your office colleagues about these key accounts and how important they are to the revenues of the business. Since it takes several people to make sure every order is correct, you want everyone to know that no account — especially a long-term account — can be taken for granted.

  Inform them about the names of key accounts, important people at each account and any special requests an account may have made. New people are joining your staff all the time (and existing staff often forget), so meetings with your coworkers about these issues is always of value.

• Consider having a manager or supervisor visit these accounts in the next six months. Having a manager or supervisor meet directly with the referral source expresses how important the referral source is to your business.

• Do not forget to send a thank you note to existing customers for their loyalty and their business. You may have made the mistake of forgetting thank-you notes for your long-term clients. Don't, or they might just forget to send you their business.