There are a number of reasons why clients leave software providers. They could be unhappy with the product, service or pricing, and sometimes clients leave for reasons beyond your control. And while it is normal for clients to leave and move on, underlying issues can be discovered by investigating unusual patterns of when and why clients leave.

In this article we’ll consider reasons why clients leave and what actions you can take to stop this.

Consider what prompts why clients leave - put yourself in your clients’ shoes

It can be difficult to always identify what causes clients to leave. A lack of feedback from previous clients can be frustrating, so it is good to regularly check in with your clients. An exit survey could be a great way to ask clients directly what affected their decision to leave, as well as providing great support services and resources to continue to educate your users about your product. 

To figure out why exactly your clients are leaving, you need to put yourself in their shoes - Here are five reasons as to why your clients could be leaving, and see how your business can prevent these situations from happening in the future.

5 reasons why clients leave

1. Your client had a poor customer service experience

One of the main reasons why your clients may leave could be down to the quality of your customer service. Whether your client has been loyal to you for the last five years or purchased from your business 5 days ago; if they aren’t happy with how they’re being treated and find your representatives unhelpful, they will walk away. In fact, 91% of unhappy clients will not willingly do business with you again.

To improve your customer service, you need to be providing the right channels to deliver a high level of support through representatives that are patient, calm, and excellent at communicating. You should also offer a repository of frequently asked questions, that your clients can refer to in order to get common queries answered quickly without using up your valuable time.

2. Your business doesn’t offer multi-channel support

Everyone has their individual preference on how to be communicated with, and it’s no different when it comes to clients communicating with your business. And when it comes to getting support with your product or service, restricting the communication options can threaten to isolate clients, which will cause them to leave.

When technology plays such an important part in today's day-to-day business transactions, it’s crucial to be accommodating to your clients' preferences. By providing multiple channels of communication for your clients, using a combination of both traditional phone support and emails reach outs, to newer channels such as webinars and video tutorials, you’ll improve satisfaction (and retention) by allowing your clients to have their enquiries dealt with quickly and efficiently. 

3. Your clients feel neglected

When your clients are feeling neglected, you may not realise this until they have already left. You’ll look back at what went wrong, but by then, it will already be too late. In order to stop your clients from leaving as a result, you’re going to need to make some changes.

It’s worth considering that miscommunication (or a lack of contact) is often the main cause of clients feeling neglected. It is worth working on your communication skills with your clients, as well as utilizing the best communication tools on the clinked platform, such as instant and group chat, discussions, and email reminders. Simple but regular check-ins can go a long way, as your client may very well come back with an issue that can be resolved before it escalates further.

4. Your product is too costly

When a client leaves and claims it’s because your product/service is too expensive, it could actually mean one of two things. Either they see the value in your product but genuinely can’t afford to keep up payment, or they don’t believe that your product is worth the cost and want to take their money elsewhere.

While there’s nothing that you can really do in order to control scenario A, you can have control over clients who leave as a result of scenario B. To do so, you should be effectively presenting how your product or service offers added value to your client. This could include bringing in free training, offering rewards, or improving the speed of your product/service delivery.

5. Not providing your clients with a reason to stay

It is great for a business to be constantly bringing in new clients, but if you don’t treat them properly, then they won’t be long term clients. Acquiring new customers can be anywhere from 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one. So if your clients don’t feel valued, they’re going to be going elsewhere - and to a business that does appreciate them.

Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to show that you value your clients and give them a reason to want to stay with you. Firstly, you should work on building strong and long-lasting business relationships with your clients. You could also look into providing your clients with incentives and rewards that you will both benefit from, such as setting up a referral program. What is the most effective way to retain customers is simply offering a good product at an affordable price.

What to do in response to why clients leave

Listen and learn from your clients

There’s value in retaining your clients. And so, if you want to improve your client retention, you should be listening and learning from the clients themselves.

Regularly checking in with your current clients can provide insights you have not thought of, such as including new features, changing sales techniques or revising pricing strategies, to make sure that every interaction your customers have with you is a great one.

Clinked is a client portal solution that gives your clients and team members the ability to access all of their documents, discussions, events, tasks (and more) from within a centralized environment. By keeping your clients information in one place by using customized and secure portals, you’ll be improving transparency, productivity and satisfaction all of which can lead to better customer retention. Get started today by booking a demo with our customer success team.