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You Don't Answer Their Calls Quickly
Sure, you may be busy, but so are your customers. And responsiveness is part of that added value they're paying you a pretty penny for.
You Waste Their Time on the Phone
On the other end of the spectrum, if you are prompt to reply but spend so much time trying to 'build rapport' asking about their granny's birthday party last weekend that you're not serving their business needs--well, they might not answer YOUR calls quickly.
You Always Come in Over Budget
When push comes to shove, the bottom line is king. Even if it is the customer's fault part of the time, if your projects consistently come in over budget and you don't adjust your estimates accordingly then don't be surprised when you're on the outs with that customer.
You're Not Looking to Save Them Money
Many VARs either become so complacent with long-term customers or scared of new models such as hosted services that they fail to suggest new buying patterns that could save the customer some dough.
You Don't Understand Their Business
If you don't understand the underlying business motivations that drive your customers to buy IT solutions, then you'll never be able to truly sell with their best interests at heart.
You Don't Buffer Them From Vendor B.S.
One of the major benefits of leveraging the channel is that a partner will ideally sift through all of the vendor mumbo-jumbo and deliver the straight dope on what to believe and what to buy. Your customers lose value when you fail to install the vendor B.S. filter.
Your Staff is Poorly Trained
If you woo your customers into contracts based on your intricate knowledge of IT and business principles and then you send out employees to their site that don't know a CAT5 cable from a power cord, you'll have problems.
Your Help Desk Sucks
Your customer knows you are good for a game of golf or a nice dinner before you ask them to sign on the bottom line. But when things go haywire in the middle of the night, is your help desk ready to serve? That's the true litmus test for customer love.
You Try to Go Over Their Heads for Your Sale
There's nothing that rankles an IT manager with purchasing power than a clueless salesperson that ignores the chain of command and tries to secretly cozy up to the CIO. Say 'bye-bye' to a good relationship when you pull that move.
All You Care About is Your Margin
Yes, you are running a business. But if you're constantly selling out the customer's long-term best interest for short-term returns then you can count on a high client churn rate.
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