Bad Questions

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Are Bad Questions Costing You Customers?

By Chakisse Newton, President, Cardinal Consulting, LLC

Recently, I canceled a monthly service with a vendor I used for several years. The owner of the company answered my call and said, “I hope you didn’t have any problems with the service.” I was stunned by his ineffective response. It was a safe bet that I had at least one problem with the service, or I wouldn’t want to cancel it.

Did the owner try to save my business? No. Did he try to learn from my experience? No. In short, he not only lost a customer, but he also lost the opportunity to gain valuable insights about his business that could help improve his service, beat the competition and prevent customers from leaving in the future.

You can learn from his mistake by politely asking one (or more) of the following 11 questions when faced with a

lost customer:

1. Why are you leaving us?
2. Did you have any problems?
3. What could we have done differently?
4. If we change the service, would you like us to notify you?
5. Were you satisfied with the service, in general?
6. If you were satisfied with us, would you recommend our service to friends?
7. Can we stay in touch and let you know about new offers/services?
8. What service will you be using now?
9. Why did you choose that vendor?
10. Can we do anything to change your mind?
11. Would you be willing to answer a brief survey about your experience with us?

Customer insight is invaluable and you have to be prepared for any answer that you hear. Generally, customer responses will only fall into a few areas, and it would help to have a few simple answers prepared in advance.

Also, depending on the service you offer, some people may feel awkward about coming back once they stop doing business with you. Make sure you let them know that they can return to you at any time if they change their minds and that you would welcome them back as clients.

With rare exceptions, no one likes to lose customers. Still, it’s an unavoidable part of business that sooner or later, one of your clients will stop using your service altogether or start to use one of your competitors. While the occasional loss of a client may be inevitable, if you learn to ask the right questions, you may be able to keep that client, or at least, learn how to keep the clients that you have.