Staff turnover is quietly killing your client relationships
Clients hate it when their contact changes (unless they were Bob, no-one misses that guy).
Not because they’re outrageously wonderful, but because they’ve invested time building a relationship with someone, explaining their business, their quirks, their politics, what good looks like for them… and now they have to do it all over again.
And they will. Mostly. But every time it happens, the relationship gets a little thinner.
We know this because we’ve been in the room. In research we’ve done with agency clients, staff changes come up constantly. Not occasionally. Not as a passing comment. As a real source of frustration. Clients find out their contact has left after they’ve already gone (happens WAY more than it should). They don’t know who else in the agency to call. They rebuild trust, the person moves on, they start again.
After a while, they stop investing in the relationship at all.
That’s when they start quietly looking at other agencies.
So what actually helps?
The good news is that most of this damage is preventable. The turnover itself is harder to fix but the impact on your client relationships? Less so.
Here’s what we hear works, and what we hear is almost never happening…
Tell them before the person leaves, not after.
This sounds so basic. And yet clients regularly find out their account manager has gone from a LinkedIn notification, or a new name appearing in their inbox with no context. A personal call from a senior person at the agency, before the departure, changes the whole tone of what follows. It’s not a small thing.
Introduce the whole team, not just the replacement.
One of the most consistent things we hear from clients is that they don’t really know who else in the agency to call. They have one contact, and when that contact changes, they feel exposed. A transition is a perfect moment to map out who does what, who to escalate to, who the senior point of contact is if something goes wrong. Clients who know the wider team feel far less dependent on any single relationship PLUS it signals how irreplaceable you are.
Treat the transition as a reset, not just a handover.
A change of contact is actually an opportunity many agencies waste. Rather than trying to make it invisible, use it to reopen the conversation. What’s working, what could be better, what are the priorities for the next six months? Clients appreciate being asked. It shows you’re invested in the relationship, not just managing continuity.
Check in a month after the new person starts, not just at the transition.
The transition itself is when everyone’s on their best behaviour. Four to six weeks in is when the reality of whether it’s working becomes clear, and it’s exactly the moment clients are least likely to raise concerns proactively. A structured check-in at that point, ideally from someone independent of the day-to-day relationship, catches problems while they’re still fixable.
Commission an independent view before the new person starts.
This is what I do. I speak to your clients in the weeks before a new hire begins, independently, honestly, without the agency in the room. By day one, your new account director knows what each client values, what’s been bothering them, and what they actually want more of.
Not the diplomatic version. The real one.
It also sends the client a message most agencies never send. That you value the relationship enough to properly invest in understanding it.
Your clients want it to work
Most of them aren’t secretly planning to leave. They’re rooting for the relationship to be good. They just need someone they’ll actually tell the truth to.
If you’re managing high turnover and want to understand how your clients are really feeling before it becomes a problem, let’s talk.
