We all know the great expense incurred when bidding for a major piece of work from a customer, and we all know that depressing feeling when we find out that on some occasions we have not been successful with our bid. But very few companies have any detailed understanding of why they were not successful on this occasion, and how they can improve their competitive offering for subsequent bids. In a survey carried out by ourselves with large business to business companies across Europe, we identified that less than 1 in 5 performed any form of loss review, and were therefore missing out on this valuable source of knowledge.

Companies quickly focus on the next sales opportunity, rather than completing the sales cycle on the last one, and gain an understanding why they were not successful. We all accept the value of learning from our “mistakes”, but very few companies put this into practice.

The main benefits of conducting a formal programme of loss reviews and investing a relatively small amount of time and money in understanding the reasons behind the loss are wide ranging:

increased probability of winning subsequent bids
generates corporate goodwill with the customer that puts the supplier in a more positive light for any subsequent bids
lessons learnt from understanding why the bid was lost will significantly increase the probability of winning subsequent business by increasing the attractiveness of the market offer
better spread of knowledge throughout the company
increases the availability of knowledge about the reasons for the loss to a wider audience, beyond those that were in the meeting / on the phone with the prospect when they were informed of their unsuccessful bid
competitive performance established
establishing advantages and disadvantages compared with the competition that can be used in future sales proposals
rank importance of issues

Reasons for not being successful are prioritised by the customer so those future barriers to success can be prioritised. Often we all hear if the bid was unsuccessful it was because the “price was too high”, and if the bid was successful it was because of the “sales person’s skills”. Although these are often key factors, the customer may in fact rank them as 4th or 5th in the decision criteria. With the customer’s ranking known, a company is able to focus on those priority areas that can be controlled and improved upon.

Improved product attractiveness

Link the information to the NPD process to help prioritise product enhancements, again increasing the probability of winning the next sale.

Vital feedback to the Sales Support team

Provides invaluable feedback to the support team who developed the proposal, and who often, receives no formal feedback on their efforts.

Continues to build the relationship with the customer / prospect

Customers see the investment made by an unsuccessful supplier as a positive move, and positions that supplier as caring, and therefore in a stronger position for the next potential piece of work.

Positive experience for the customer

The customer is also positive about providing this feedback as they too have invested significant time and effort in evaluating the proposals, and it can help them to run through their evaluation process and discuss how they came to their conclusion.

All of these points are equally as true for the proposal that was won. However again the research by Customer Champions shows less than 1 in 5 companies formally establishing why they were successful. The focus of companies is to charge into delivering against their proposal, and chasing the next sales opportunity, not to support this with the opportunity to take stock and obtain the true value of the reasons why they were successful – beyond the “skills of the sales person”.

A company that has successfully introduced a Loss and Win Review programme is a UK B2B services company, where they have retained Customer Champions to perform face to face interviews with both lost and won business customers. Their Market Research Manager sees this approach providing dividends as “using a third party agency allows our customers to provide invaluable feedback on why we have been successful or not, and this is then linked into our overall customer review programme”. Within the company these review findings are linked to other programmes such as Customer Satisfaction Measurement, and internal operational metrics. They also note that “not only can we see why we were successful or not, but we can see what needs to be done in terms of enhancing our total offer to the market to make it even more attractive”.

Customer Champions believe that many suppliers could significantly supplement a more traditional customer satisfaction programme with the introduction of a win and loss review programme.

Take the next step

The Customer Champions Loss review briefing document provides an introduction to the process to be followed in order to conduct a successful Loss Review programme within a Business to Business Service environment. It has been developed by us and utilises our experience of running these programmes for a number of global organisations. To request more information on our Loss Review briefing document, please contact us.

To discuss how a Win Loss Reviews could improve future performance in your setting, get in touch with Customer Champions.

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Some you win, but some you lose – but why?