6 key questions when assessing client stickiness

What is client stickiness?

"Client stickiness": when a customer elects to buy your services on more than one occasion because of your subject matter expertise, value proposition and/or service experience.

6 key questions to assess client stickiness

Determining your clients' stickiness is essential if you wish to ensure long-term customer retention and relationship value. Here, the key questions you need to be asking in your client feedback (CX) or net promoter score (NPS) sessions with clients are:

1. How?

2. Why?

3. Who?

4. What?

5. When?

6. Where?

More specifically, here’s what you should be assessing and evaluating to determine your client's stickiness.

1. How?

• • How did the client hear about you?

  • How well did you do when you first talked to the client about their problem(s)?

  • How serious are you about investing in this relationship?

  • How responsive have you been to your client's needs?

  • How integrated are you in the operations of your client's business [are we honestly an extension of their in-house team?]?

  • How well do you know/understand your client's future pain points and needs?

2. Why?

• • Why did your client need your services in the first place?

  • Why did the client choose you?

  • Why would they stay with you [over your competition]?

3. Who?

• • Who [at the client] decides to send work to you?

  • Who [from your firm] talks to that person?

  • Who from your firm should be talking to that person [and is not]?

4. What?

• • What value are you providing to the client?

  • What are you doing every day to make sure this client stays with you?

  • What services [at your firm] are they using?

  • What other services [at your firm] should they be using?

  • What would cause the client to change service providers?

  • What is the ROI of this client?

5. When?

• • When did you last talk to the client?

  • When did the client last use your services?

  • When is the client’s busy season (secondment opportunities?)?

6. Where?

• • Where does your client use your services (Their office? Your office? The internet? All of the above?)?

  • Where can you improve the client experience?

  • Where else could your clients use your services?

Hopefully, this list of questions provides a useful starting point for thinking about how you can engage at a deeper level with those clients you wish to be doing more work with. 

Please get in touch with the team at GSJ Consulting if you need help with putting in place a business development process that ensures client stickiness in your business.