How to Recover Lost Clients: Proven Strategies for Sales Success

Losing a client can feel like a major setback, but with the right strategies, you can win them back and strengthen your business relationships.

Over time, you will lose a large client. You may lose the client because you failed them, or a competitor stole them. There are many ways to lose a client, including your main contact leaving, the company moving out of your territory, or the company changing how they do something so that they no longer use what you sold them.

Principle 1: Understand Client-Loss Dynamics

As you lose clients, remember that your clients will be losing some of their clients.

When you work with very large clients, you discover they have more, and often larger, problems, including losing their clients. Your clients are not going to give up on trying to win back a lost client. Like your lost client is trying to win back their lost clients, you should attempt to recover your lost clients.

Principle 2: Take Full Responsibility for Client Loss

Own the loss completely.

No matter what you did or failed to do to lose the client, you must own the loss of the client.

One time, a manager failed a large client that spent more than $5 million annually. The lost client had been difficult to take care of day-to-day, and the manager gave up, allowing a competitor to take over the client and the revenue that his company needed.

Some sales reps have a tough time taking responsibility for whatever their company did to lose the client. If you cannot take the blame for the lost client, you will have difficulty recovering them. In the case I just described, the salesperson continued to pursue the company until she could get a meeting.

Whatever you do, make certain that you don’t make excuses, as this is likely to cause you to fail your client again.

Principle 3: Implement Essential Changes Before Reaching Out

Make certain you have made the necessary changes.

The salesperson took responsibility for failing the client, explaining that they didn’t reach out until they had made the changes that would allow them to execute what the client needed. In this same conversation, the salesperson shared a new strategy that the incumbent could not do. The contact opened up to the idea that this team deserved a second chance.

If you have not addressed what you and your company need to do to execute flawlessly, you should wait to ask for a second chance. Once you are prepared to succeed, open the communication and work on your second chance.

Principle 4: Ensure Team Readiness for Successful Execution

Ensure your team is ready and able to execute.

Before you recover the client’s business, make certain your leaders and delivery team have everything they need to accomplish what they had failed to do in the past. You are better off waiting than repeating the mistakes that caused you to lose the client in the first place. If you are not certain you are ready, wait until you are certain.

Principle 5: Communicate Changes and Success Strategies

Communicate the changes and how you will succeed.

You will need to explain the changes and how your team will be able to provide the results and outcomes that you failed to deliver in the past. You should prepare to explain how and why the changes will lead to success on your second chance.

Principle 6: Leverage Time to Your Advantage

Time is on your side.

One company was spending $7 million annually. One day, we found we had a new decision maker, who didn’t like the program we were delivering. She was the only person who didn’t love it. She fired us and chose another company with a lower price and a program that caused the managers many more problems.

Over time, the decision maker wore out her welcome. Because we had deep relationships, we were back in business a few days after she took a box to her car. Time tends to remove the emotions of having failed the client or, in the case above, the sting of being removed by a new decision maker.

Principle 7: Maintain Close Contact with Recovered Clients

Stay close to the recovered client.

You want to stay close to your contacts in your newly recovered client. Early on, you want to spend time to ensure things are going as promised. Your presence on your second chance is important because it shows that you care about making sure things go well. For some time, you will want to assess how your team is doing and the results the client needs.

If those who recover the client and believe that they have done their part and don’t stay involved, they may find that things aren’t working again, and it might be too late to fix the issues.

Conclusion

You might believe that whatever your team did to cause the loss means you will never be able to recover the lost client. Never is much longer than you believe it is. You may not realize that if you do the work described here, you may be forgiven and given a second chance after losing the client’s business.

If you are a salesperson, you should make a list of lost clients and build a plan to bring them back home. If you are a sales leader or sales manager, hand out a list of clients you want your team to reacquire.