Customer Retention Team Development

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By Diana Liffick

Handling account cancellation calls goes by many names.  Whether you call it simply “Cancellations” or “Customer Saves” or “Membership Retention”, it’s all the same thing:  bad news.   

Here are some pointers to give your team to help turn bad news into good news more often every day. 

         Use the tools your company provides for customer retention, such as special deals or V.I.P. services, when it might be applicable.

I always had representatives on my “saves” team who were repeatedly not offering the deals that we provided, but couldn’t understand why they weren’t saving enough customers.  Adopt the motto, ‘Use what works!’

Don't sound the same on every call — unless you get the same customer with the same reason for canceling on every call.  Remember “Bueller?  Bueller?”  Avoid that.  And musicians whose songs all sound the same get flamed for it. Mix it up!  Sound alive.

All of the truly, honestly successful “saves” representatives I dealt with sounded personable, and customized how they handled every call to that specific customer.

Remember nothing "always" works "every time".  In fact, avoid saying “always” or “never” unless it’s really applicable.

You might have representatives who quickly dismiss customer retention methods after they do not work on one or two customers.  Comparing the conclusion to your, your team’s, or your company’s large-scale tracking of what really works with the rep can be helpful in keeping them from abandoning good customer retention methods.

You have to really WANT the saved customers.   You must be truly DETERMINED to get them. They will not just fall in your lap all the time — you have to earn them.

That is to say, representatives don’t have to be full of longing — they just have to be committed to succeeding in order to do so.

Constantly develop and adjust save maneuvers. Even if you can’t help but sound the same on every call, if the ways your company handles the competition isn’t cutting it, then there isn’t much you can do besides pass that information ‘up the chain.’

Your company needs to stay on top of the competition, as well as problems that can cause customers to cancel.  Listen to your representatives when they tell you why customers are leaving and what your company needs to do about it.  Don’t quickly dismiss all feedback from the front lines just because some or most of it isn’t going to help.

Hopefully, these tried-and-true tips that I learned will help your team be very successful at saving customers from canceling their accounts.  Remember, if you are properly coaching a representative, using the standard feedback cycle, until it becomes obvious that they will never ‘get it’, then ask yourself, Why are they taking only customer retention calls?  Their skills should be re-evaluated to see where they belong.   Good luck!