Question

Introduction

You own a mid-size accounting business. You have been doing the taxes for one particular company for three years. Last month the partners failed to meet you for a quarterly appointment set up two months ago. You call the company to reschedule, and one of the partners tells you, "We have actually switched to another accounting firm." When you ask why, the response is, "I don't really know. That was Jim's decision."

Instructions

Answer the following: What should you do? How can you arrange to learn the reasons for the defection? What questions would you ask the partners? Write a sample set of questions you would like to have answered by the defecting customer. How would the questions change if you were conducting an exit interview with an employee? Write a sample set of questions you would like to have the departing employee answer.

Answer 1

Such a situation is very common in business and as an owner of a business it is better to accept such incidents positively so that it helps the organization to learn and as the owner I also will learn how to tackle such situations and go ahead strong. In this case as the owner I need to first understand the reason of terminating the business relationship because as an organization I need to learn that the issue was with us or not and if yes then what did we do wrong. In order to learn about the reasons it is better to have a conversation with Jim and an informal meeting has to be setup with Jim which will be kind of a interactive and feedback session for the organization.

The set of questions that I will be framing for the customer will be:

1. How was the experience working with the organization?

This will give a clear picture of the experiences the customer had, working with the organization.

2. Do you feel that we can again do business in the future?

This will provide the attitude the customer possess towards the organization.

3. What should we improve in order to sustain in the industry.

Limitations of the organization from the customer's perspective

4. Will you refer working with us to anybody?

The attitude of the customer needs to be known.

The questions to be asked during an exit interview are:

1. What is the reason for your separation with the organization?

2. How was your relationship with your manager?

3. What did you like most about the job that you did here?

4. What suggestions do you have for the organization?

5. Would you recommend anybody to work with us?