What Does Best in Class Customer Retention Look Like for a Building Service Contractor (BSC)

Ask any building service contractor (BSC) where sustainable growth comes from, and you'll hear a simple truth: You can't build a bigger business by pulling bricks from the foundation.

That theme ran through a lively panel featuring Dana Boyce, vice president of marketing and strategy at Pioneer; Michael L. Fitts, chief commercial officer at 4M; and Billie Reader, vice president at Velociti Services, moderated by Gerald Fong, CEO and co-owner of BrightGo.

From the outset, the group aligned on a core principle: best-in-class retention is intentional. It's defined at the enterprise level, owned across functions, and executed through consistent communication, measurable quality, and trusted relationships. Everything else-pricing pressure, technology promises, contract renewal tactics-either feeds that flywheel or drains it.

Define retention, then make it real

What counts as "best in class"? Fitts put a stake in the ground: "For us in our business and kind of broadly, it's 95% or better…that's an annual revenue retention or client retention," he said. He noted that sophisticated operators also track by logo count and may layer in net retention to capture upsell and expansion, but the baseline is brutally clear: what you start the year with, you should still have at year's end-ideally more.

Boyce pressed the useful distinction between logos and revenue, since big multi-site customers can obscure underlying churn if you only look at the brand name and not the sites retained. Fitts agreed and boiled it down with a plain-English test: keep at least 95 cents of every dollar-and work to grow it to a dollar-ten.

Price, service, or relationship? The "why" behind churn

Everyone has heard the post-mortem excuse: "We lost on price." The panel challenged that reflex. Boyce said the real work is probing the "why" with honesty and access: Was it purely rate, or did a competitor build stronger relationships and show clearer value? "If you don't know the why, go and ask," Boyce said. The best time to do that isn't at the end-it's during the relationship through structured business reviews and informal touchpoints.

Reader framed the root causes the way an operator must: service, relationship, price, and statutory issues (e.g., health and safety failures). Her rule of thumb is crisp: "If you lose an account, please don't lose it for service." The relationship and communication cadence, she said, are "the keystone of making sure that you can retain your clients."

Cadence beats heroics

High retention isn't a fire-drill skill; it's a rhythm. Reader described a deliberate system: regular touchpoints about retention and renewal, a "client in jeopardy" program that escalates hotspots to senior leadership, and a 30-60-90 plan for new or transitioned site leaders-re-reviewed at six and twelve months-so "they know what great looks like."

Boyce added that Pioneer runs a "playbook format" led by client engagement managers. The key is that the playbook evolves. "This isn't a set-it-and-forget-it type of environment," she said. Reporting frequency, inspection approaches, and staffing models should flex to the facility type and the client's reality. When budgets get squeezed-sometimes by 20%+-providers with a real relationship get the first call, not the RFP.

Renewal is a year-round sport

Fitts urged leaders to treat renewals as a process, not an event. With three-year contracts, be in executive-level reviews by the 18-month mark. One year out, start talking "gives and gets," making the value case with evidence-quality scores, responsiveness, solved problems, and cost/productivity wins. "Use evidence-based reporting…don't let it be a feel-good," he said. Also: remember the buying committee. Your daily contact needs artifacts they can carry into procurement and leadership meetings.

Quality is the non-negotiable

The panel returned often to the triangle that really drives retention: Employee retention, service quality, and customer retention. You can't deliver consistency without stable, supported frontline teams. That's why the smartest BSCs are investing in QA systems, coaching, and frontline engagement tools, and tracking how those investments impact complaints, rework, and turnover.

"Never ever settle on that the customer [is] satisfied today-today you're a peacock, tomorrow you're a feather duster," Fitts said. The defense against that swing is still the fundamentals: consistent quality checks, rapid problem resolution, and leaders who show up prepared to account for billing, staffing, and training when they sit down with the client.

Use technology to prove value-then actually use it

Technology came up with a helpful nuance. Boyce cautioned against over-promising platforms you don't operationalize. "We're a data-influenced versus data-driven" organization, she said-meaning the goal is to create clarity, not drown clients in dashboards. Many facility leaders don't want nightly emails; they want the option to pull reports when needed and a partner who can interpret what the data means for outcomes.

Reader highlighted frontline-first tools-apps for benefits, perks, and direct communication from leadership-that stabilize teams and improve service continuity. Fitts urged leaders to evaluate tech like any capital project: define ROI, test in pilots, and scale what works. Whether it's battery equipment productivity gains, robotics, or AI-assisted analytics, the question is always: does this raise quality, transparency, or productivity enough to move the retention needle?

Sales vs. operations: Who owns the relationship?

On handoffs, no one argued for silos. In Fitts's model, operations owns the day-to-day, but sales shouldn't disappear-referrals and expansion come from sustained relationships. Boyce described a "client engagement" layer between ops and pure sales, with modest sales KPIs, whose job is to nurture the relationship and protect continuity when clients change roles or companies.

The human factor: trust compounds

If there was one through-line, it's that retention compounds when clients trust you. Trust comes from candor (sharing the good and the bad), preparedness (bringing facts, not vibes), and proximity (being present early and often). As Reader put it, the goal is simple: if a client must cut, they come to you first-not the bid board-because the relationship is transparent and the provider is willing to co-engineer options that preserve outcomes.

Five moves any BSC can make this quarter

• Set a company-wide retention definition and target (e.g., 95%+ revenue and logo retention). Publish the score monthly.
• Institute a renewal clock: executive reviews at mid-term, value artifacts prepared 12 months out.
• Stand up a "client in jeopardy" workflow that triggers senior attention, corrective plans, and fast follow-through.
• Tighten evidence: QA trends, response SLAs, staffing stability, and cost/productivity wins-packaged in three or four client-ready slides.
• Right-size tech promises: align reporting cadence to the client, and ensure frontline tools actually improve quality and tenure.

Closing it out

Price will always show up in the conversation. But in a services business, the partners who keep buildings running, who communicate clearly, and who can prove value with evidence-those are the ones customers fight for internally. Or as Fitts summed it up: be a partner of character, represented by people of character. Do that, and the 95%+ club isn't a stretch goal; it's your new baseline.