I found myself chuckling when my sister confessed to me that after a long, hot day she filled her dog’s pool with cold water and laid in it with a cool drink! She said it was amazing. Unfortunately, she discovered a slow leak which meant she had to jump up and replenish water, every time she began to relax. After a while, the task of filling the pool created so much work that it took away from the original goal of cool enjoyment. The slow leak caused her to give up and throw the pool in the trash.

Often times, our sales efforts mirror that leaky pool. Great ad campaigns bring prospects to the door and well-trained sales and service reps close on the new business. They are filling the pool. It may even seem as if the pool is going to overflow. Then, a slow leak develops. You don’t notice it at first. After all, out of all the calls you have handled today, only one customer asked to cancel service. It was a quick and painless process to close the account. You are certain that the number of new customers you have gained is easily making up for any losses.

What if you have more than one leak? Consider what would happen if every CSR and every sales rep had one cancellation each day. Multiply that by the number of offices within your organization. The damage a quick cancellation causes can be devastating.

How can you stop the leak?

Approach a cancellation as if it were a sales opportunity. Have a strategy to assess the customer’s situation and provide a solution. Don’t be offended by an angry customer. Listen to the criticisms and thank your customer for the feedback.

A customer likes to hear:

We don’t want to lose you
This is what I can do to fix it
Thank you for your feedback
We will follow-up with you
Develop a strategy to handle cancellations by determining the top 3 reasons why someone would cancel. Being unhappy with the service or product quality and unhappiness with the price are the two most common reasons for a customer’s request to cancel. Train your team on how to handle those particular situations.

Counter “I hate your service” with something such as, “Mr. Smith, I am so sorry that this happened. What I will do to correct this for you is…”.

Counter a pricing cancellation by first asking if the product or service has been valuable. You need to know if pricing is the only issue at hand.

Celebrate a saved customer just as you would a new one. Give your team the tools they need to plug a leak before your sales numbers reflect you have flood damage.