Clients Love You — Until They Don’t. Here’s How We Survived Losing a Client of 30 Years.

Have you ever had a customer unceremoniously dump you? It happens every day for lots of reasons. Sometimes it’s your fault. Sometimes it’s not.

During the first few years of my company, I had an opportunity to bid on a project that would be a long-term contract. It was an exciting new employee communication vehicle that would help a well-known manufacturer improve employee business literacy. The company had facilities, showrooms and sales offices across the country. This video would be a monthly review with lots of features, financial information and more to keep everyone focused on the right things.

For many years, we were included in the strategy, planning and execution of communication. Over time, I worked closely with six CEOs and numerous internal communication specialists. The company referred others to us and that helped us grow. We helped them by donating videos to support their charitable efforts. When the economy took a downturn, we helped them by being more efficient and watching the budget as if it were our own. We became a trusted partner handling sensitive company information — so trusted that we literally had the keys to the headquarters and were on internal voicemail.

As time went on over the 30 years of business together, they experienced economic downturns, reduced staff and the need to change their business model. That spurred us to aggressively seek out new customers in industries that were thriving. Business did improve, and they started to grow again. During the last few years we worked with them, I kept suggesting ways to refresh communication and some newer ideas for content creation and distribution. Every time I was politely told things were fine. Something just did not seem right; they did not want to devote the time or budget to the project. It started to get stale — month after month, it was the same thing.

One day after we had been out on location, I got a call as I was leaving the office. My contact told me that we should finish that month’s communication and they would no longer need us. Truthfully, the relationship had been on the downturn for a while. So, it was not completely unexpected. Fortunately, I was prepared. And you should be too because clients love you — until they don’t. Here are a few things to consider.

Keep your eye on the changing landscape

Today, the reality is that change happens so quickly, and it is difficult to maintain long-term relationships. When a customer has new people moving into key roles, there is constant tension regarding different priorities. They may want to bring in their own network of suppliers. In this case, the individual in charge decided to pull the business in-house and try to manage it on their own. Spoiler alert: In the first month, they had to call us for support because the job was more difficult than expected. I graciously sent a person out to assist.

For many years, my client treated us as part of the team, but the culture had changed so much that relationships were not as valued. In truth, I would have understood if there had been a real conversation or even a heads-up. It was just an abrupt end. The good news is that while this client at one point had a significant impact on my bottom line, that was no longer the case. It is critical that you pay attention to changes within your client’s organization so you don’t get blindsided.

Don’t get boxed in

When you work with a customer for a long time, their view of you is clouded by the past. In this story, my company was viewed as the people who did internal communications. That was true when we first started working with them, but it changed as we became more sophisticated. In fact, for other customers, we were doing a wide variety of work for external projects — often high-profile campaigns. However, we were unable to change this company’s perception, so we could not make inroads into other departments. If you get boxed into a certain type of work with a client, you are limited.

I learned that it is critical to keep communicating and adding capabilities. Do that well then look for new clients that are open to who you are… not who you used to be.

Trust your gut

It is not uncommon to have customers question your recommendations. It is good when they push back. They know their organization and can provide great insights. But they also hire you to give them your best advice. In this story, it was becoming obvious that my customer was not open to recommendations. At one point, the client suggested a new recurring feature. I pushed back because I knew that they did not have the bandwidth to make it sustainable. I was told, “Just do what we tell you.” I did, and the feature failed after a few months.

I learned that it’s important to have regular check-ins and healthy debates with customers. When they no longer want to do that — it is a sign. You can’t do your best work if the customer will not at least consider your advice and expertise. When a client starts to limit communication and second-guess your work, trust your gut. It may be time to leave them and find others who do recognize what you bring to them.

Dollars and sense

One of the worst things that happens when you lose a client is financial loss. The loss of income in this case took place slowly over a few years. When they dumped us, it was not difficult to replace the income because we had been ramping up marketing efforts. It takes time and effort to work with clients and a small project with a difficult customer takes just as much effort as a big project. We all have only so much capacity. Use it for those who value what you do and are willing to pay for it. That learning is one that I pay attention to every day; it just makes sense.