Part 1: How Not to Push Customers Away: Communication That Retains

A follow-up to “10 Signs Your Customer Is About to Leave You for Another Vendor.”

When Communication Becomes the Problem

Most customers don’t leave because of price. They don’t leave because of one missed email or a single bad quarter. They leave because, over time, communication becomes a source of friction instead of value.

Too little communication creates uncertainty. Too much communication creates fatigue. Poorly timed or self-serving communication erodes trust. And overbearing communication, no matter how well-intended, signals insecurity rather than partnership.

This article is about finding the balance. It’s about communicating in a way that reassures customers, respects their time, and reinforces why they chose you in the first place. The goal isn’t to talk more. The goal is to communicate better.

The Hidden Cost of Bad Communication

Bad communication rarely shows up as an obvious failure. It shows up as:

•  Meetings that feel unnecessary

•  Emails that go unread

•  Customers who respond later and with less detail

•  A shift from collaborative conversations to transactional ones

When this happens, vendors often make the problem worse by increasing outreach, escalating internally, or “checking in” too frequently. What feels like diligence on your side often feels like pressure on theirs.

The paradox is simple: the more anxious you become about losing a customer, the more likely your communication will push them away.

Section 1: How Bad Communication Pushes Customers Away

1. Talking When You Should Be Listening

Many vendors communicate to reassure themselves, not the customer. They explain, justify, update, and defend, without first understanding what the customer actually cares about in that moment.

Customers don’t want to be managed. They want to be understood.

Fix: Enter every conversation with a listening objective. If you can’t clearly articulate what you want to learn, you’re probably talking too much.

2. Making Every Interaction About You

Updates that focus on your roadmap, your internal changes, your quarterly goals, or your new initiatives, without tying them directly to customer value, quickly feel irrelevant.

Customers mentally translate these messages as: “Why should I care?”

Fix: Every communication should answer one question: How does this help the customer win?

3. Over-Explaining Problems Instead of Solving Them

Transparency matters. But repeatedly explaining the same issue, delay, or limitation, especially without progress, creates doubt about competence.

Customers don’t expect perfection. They expect progress.

Fix: Communicate less about the problem and more about what has changed since the last conversation.

Section 2: The Danger of Too Much Communication

4. Mistaking Activity for Value

Weekly check-ins, standing calls, and constant status emails can feel productive internally while draining customers externally.

Customers measure value by outcomes, not touchpoints.

Fix: Reduce frequency. Increase substance. If nothing meaningful has changed, don’t force a meeting.

5. The “Just Checking In” Trap

Emails that say “just checking in” or “circling back” communicate uncertainty and lack of purpose. They ask the customer to decide whether your outreach matters.

Fix: Replace vague follow-ups with specific intent: insight, decision, recommendation, or next step.

In Part Two. Next, we’ll move beyond what not to do and focus on what excellent communication actually looks like: how to build trust without overreaching, remain present without being intrusive, and communicate in ways that strengthen customer relationships rather than put them to the test.

William Reynolds