When Your Agent Leaves, Are Your Customers Leaving Too?

When a valued member of staff leaves, most businesses think about the immediate practicalities.

The handover. Systems access. Equipment. Clients. Perhaps even the leaving card.

But there’s another question businesses should be asking:

What happens to the customer relationships they’ve built?

Because sometimes an employee doesn’t leave alone.

Your customers – and the revenue associated with them – may start disappearing too.

The Relationship Belongs to the Business

This can be particularly important in relationship-led sectors such as energy brokerage.

An agent may have spent years building a relationship with a customer. They may be the person the customer calls, trusts and associates with your business.

Then the agent leaves.

Twelve months ago, the customer signed a contract through your company. But since then, perhaps nobody else within the business has spoken to them.

Suddenly the relationship you thought belonged to the company is much more vulnerable than you realised.

Would You Know?

This is the question businesses need to consider.

If an employee or agent took client information, commercial knowledge or customer relationships with them:

How quickly would you know?

Perhaps the first sign is a customer who suddenly stops responding.

Maybe renewal opportunities disappear.

Perhaps expected revenue doesn’t materialise.

Or you discover months later that customers you believed were still part of your portfolio have followed somebody elsewhere.

By that point, understanding exactly what happened can become considerably more difficult.

Protect Your Relationships Before Someone Leaves

There are practical things businesses can do.

Don’t allow one person to own the entire customer relationship.

Maintain regular company touchpoints throughout the contract.

Keep CRM information accurate and current.

Make sure customer agreements, data and commercial information are appropriately protected.

And pay attention when established customer behaviour suddenly changes.

When You Suspect Something Has Happened

Sometimes the issue only becomes apparent after the event.

PreAction can help businesses investigate the circumstances, understand the commercial impact and establish whether revenue or customer relationships may have been lost as a result.

Our role isn’t simply to recover unpaid invoices.

It’s to help businesses recover what’s owed and protect what’s theirs.

Because when somebody leaves your business, ideally the only thing they should take with them is their good luck card.

Concerned about unexplained customer or revenue loss? Talk to PreAction about how we may be able to help.