Winning and losing clients is part of the agency business. But with the right processes in place, you can smooth customer transitions and maintain positive relationships no matter the outcome.
We address best practices for onboarding new customers and disconnecting those who leave, which will improve the customer experience, get them up and running quickly, and enable future referrals.
Manage customer transitions seamlessly
As a search agency, you’re always trying to win new business. This means countless presentations, opportunities and work to showcase your abilities.
New business is hard. It’s even more difficult in a space where the difference between winning and losing is so slim.
Winning is great, but you never just win. The base is also lost and hit.
The professional services turnover rate is 27%, for a Customer Indicator Report.
Although professional services is a larger category than search agency work, turnover is also inevitable.
At my agency, we’ve streamlined the onboarding and onboarding of key practices that improve the customer experience, accelerate workflow, and increase overall NPS, even at customer exits.
Onboarding PPC clients
Learn the business
Of course you won the business because you are a search marketing expert. Congratulations!
However, even if you have worked in this space or vertical, you still need to learn their business.
There are two things we think about when learning a new business:
The language: What acronyms do they use? These can be sector or vertical specific and unique to your business. Every company has a unique culture and language. Learn to speak their language.
The metrics: How do they make money? It’s not about delivering clicks or impressions. You really need to know the mechanisms that generate growth and profits for the business. You are a partner in their success and not just by offering search marketing services. The more you can align with KPIs, understand how they were set, and use them in your daily activities, the better off you will be.
Dig Deeper: How to build and maintain client trust in your agency
Set expectations
This is a new relationship, so you need to be clear about how you work and what they can expect from you. This is where a strong project and account management team can shine.
Are the meetings weekly or monthly?
When you say a delivery will be made at the end of the day, is that 5pm or before you go to bed?
Does the quote you are offered include fees? You should make sure not to make assumptions about these items.
Dig Deeper: What clients expect from your PPC agency
Be curious
Yes, you are hired for a specific reason. However, this should not stop you from being curious and thinking about the business.
You may not be responsible for creating landing pages or writing copy, but the process of how it’s done is important to your success.
Ask to understand things that may not be related to your job, but are. We often ask to speak to the sales and customer service teams. We want to understand the business and the language people use.
It also helps clear up the objections you need to overcome to make a sale. Try the product and go through the same customer experience so you know how things work.
This requires curiosity. You can easily use keywords for a product that you sell with only tools and never have any hands-on experience.
Dig Deeper: 6 Tips for Building Relationships with PPC Clients
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Offboarding PPC clients
The golden rule
Just treat people the way you want to be treated. This is so obvious, yet it is often missed.
If a customer leaves, it could be a big deal or just a change in management. The new person may want their own team, even if you’ve been doing well with 60% annual improvement.
I’ve experienced both, and neither is fun for different reasons. However, you cannot see it as anything other than a business. When making this decision, remember that you never know what the future holds.
People move companies, new products are launched and things change. We recently took over a business that we lost a year ago.
I’m sure if we hadn’t followed the golden rule, we wouldn’t have gotten the call to come back and help. I am happy to report that the relationship is going very well.
To share
Sharing is hard. You want to believe that what you did was unique and proprietary. Maybe something was, but the customer who left didn’t think enough about it, so they leave.
Helping them out with their details and account will help leave a positive impression.
We recently heard a scenario where a client was leaving and the previous agency wanted to charge the client for access to their account.
Consider what impression this leaves on the client and the agency transitioning the account. This is a referral business. Not sharing doesn’t call a referral.
Ask for feedback
Losing an account is no fun, but you should use it as a learning opportunity. Why did this business decide to go ahead? What could I have done differently?
Have an internal and external autopsy. Sometimes the answer is simple: we have a new CMO and she’s leading her agency.
In other cases, it’s a little more complex or a topic you could have done something about.
Have you equipped him with too many junior team members?
Did you not tell a compelling story about your work or the market forces at play?
Are these comments similar on other accounts with a similar makeup or team member?
Is there anything you can do to be proactive in your new business wins?
Handle customer transitions gracefully
Clients coming and going are inevitable in the agency world. However, implementing best practices for onboarding new customers and gracefully removing departing ones can significantly reduce friction, maintain positive relationships, and generate referrals.
You can build trust and enable future success by asking for feedback during transitions. With the right processes in place, your agency can make saying hello and goodbye as easy as possible.
Dig Deeper: How to retain customers in PPC
The views expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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