Attrition: A Customer Relationship Opportunity

TSIA – August 2012

When an employee leaves for another job opportunity, it may be difficult to fill the hole, especially if he or she is responsible for managing a number of projects, initiatives, or engagements with your key customers. These projects will need a new team leader or manager…so how do you approach finding someone to fill those shoes? Some factors to consider include:

• Who is available?
• Who is best qualified for the particular project scope?
• Does anyone have a previous positive experience with the customers?
• Can someone from within the existing team be promoted or take on extra work?
• What stage is the project in, and is a replacement really required?

A starting point might be to pinpoint someone who is available, and then begin narrowing down the field by skill sets and customer experience. This serves the operational management needs of increasing utilization, as you may be pulling someone off the bench or using a resource that is scheduled to free up shortly. Sounds like a solid approach, but have you considered the following questions?

• How long will it take for a new person to gain an understanding of the project?
• How will the person be received by the customer? How long until a solid relationship is in place?
• Do you know what the customer likes about the current lead and what they disliked?
• Do you have a consistent methodology in place so a new lead would follow the practices of the current lead?
• And, again, what stage is the project in?

Now you are looking at your employee attrition through the eyes of the customer. Their project is your connection to one another and forms the basis for the relationship between customer and vendor. If the project is not going well, then the relationship is strained. Handling attrition of your team lead or project manager is an opportunity for your organization to enhance the customer relationship in place and demonstrate your ability to smoothly and adeptly handle change as a normal part of business.

The “what stage is the project in” question is listed twice above. This is because it is an important consideration in determining how to handle the employee replacement question. If the project has just started, or is in an early discovery phase, the replacement of an employee with another qualified and skilled lead may be the best option. Early project stages tend to allow quicker ramp-up, as there isn’t much historical or legacy information to learn and customer relationships are still evolving as project activities start up.

What if the project is in the middle of, or approaching, a critical test window? I’d argue that promoting from within the existing team would be a priority in order to allow continued progress with little disruption. Promoting from within may not always be possible, but quite often I’ve found that teams rally together when projects enter critical phases and individuals stand out, which can help with the transition. Backfilling a team member such as a developer or trainer may be a bit easier than a lead resource since they would be coached by the team and not have to work on both the project ramp-up and the customer relationship at the same time.

And, finally, what about projects approaching the end of their life cycle, such as a go-live date with support afterward? Does a new lead need to be appointed? This is a good topic to discuss with the customer, because they may feel autonomous by this point or may simply desire a point of contact for escalations without the formal team structure going forward.

In all of these cases, the customer needs to be aware of the plan. This gives you, as the employer and vendor, the opportunity to have direct management contact with the client. The employee or team lead will most likely have initial conversations with the customer, but I would say that management has an opportunity here to advance their relationship with the client and also demonstrate their recognition of customer importance. By getting involved as a manager, you can ensure that you know the customer situation personally, you’ll be able to answer all those questions above regarding what they like and don’t like, and you can provide a communication path that the customer may leverage to provide feedback—both bad and good.

Taking the time to ensure you select the right resource to meet the project and customer needs will demonstrate your professionalism as a company and your depth of skill sets among your team. As an added bonus, you’ll also be advertising how your methodology promotes success in light of unexpected risks.