| Client Loyalty: What You Don't Know Can Hurt You
Some estimates say it costs six to eight times more to obtain a new client than
it does to keep an existing one. A Client Relations
program can be effective in gauging how your clients truly feel about the level
of service your firm is providing them
by Stephanie
Craft, MARKETLINK When I first started in this industry I worked for a large,
very well established civil engineering firm in the Intermountain Region. I was
the first marketing person they had ever hired so I was fortunate to be able to
set up the department and get their marketing programs put into place. One day
I approached my boss, the president of the company, about establishing a Client
Relations program to monitor client satisfaction. This was the next marketing
program that needed to be established in the firm. After I explained how it would
work and the valuable information we would receive from it, he told me "no".
He felt that if their clients were unhappy, then they would tell them so, and
as long as the firm didn't hear from their clients they could assume everything
was going fine. In the three years I worked there, I was never able to change
his mind. Thankfully, a lot has changed in the past 20 years and firms are
much more open to getting client feedback. However, if you're still in the throws
of trying to get a Client Relations program put into place at your firm, here
is some help. An excerpt from an SMPS article titled, Client Relations Programs:
A Primer for Technical Staff, stated: "Some estimates say it costs six to
eight times more to obtain a new client than it does to keep one. One study reports
that clients change consultants due to dissatisfaction with the deliverable or
product only 14 percent of the time. However, an amazing 68 percent of the time,
they change due to poor service or ill treatment from their current consultant. Whether
my former boss wanted to know or not, based on these statistics it makes sense
out of pure economics that we should be willing to ask our clients their opinions
of our work and staff. If you have never asked your clients how they feel about
your work, then you'll only know how they feel when they do or do not select you
for their next project. And then it may be too late to ask. So here's a
quick overview of how to set up your own in-house program.
Use your marketing staff to implement the program. My experience as a marketing
consultant is that clients are much more open to discussing their feelings with
someone who is not related to their project. There is a perception that candidness
directly with their project manager could jeopardize the project - especially
if it's already been a bumpy road. So use your marketing staff who are already
tuned in to client needs to survey your clients for the best results. Develop
a list of questions you've always wanted the answers to,
but were afraid to
ask. These can include, "Can you tell me what you've heard about our firm's
reputation in the industry?" "What do you like least about working with
our firm?" "What are your opinions regarding the quality of our work?"
"Rate the quality of your working relationship with our project manager."
Include questions that are both project- and staff-related as well as those to
do with the office such as timeliness of returned calls, professionalism of support
staff, etc. Determine the intervals for surveying. Clients
want to be asked but not so often that it's annoying. Choose clients with both
small and large projects and ask them once or twice during the project depending
on how long it will last, or after each phase. I recommend coordinating this with
the accounting department so when a project is assigned a project number then
the marketing department/staff is notified for possibly adding the client and
project to the Client Relations program. Document
the findings and share them internally. We always presume we're going to hear
everything we are doing wrong when we conduct client surveys. But the best part
of client surveys is learning what your firm does right. Everyone can learn from
each other's mistakes and we tend to dwell on those, but don't forget to learn
from what others in the firm have done right. Some staff have better people skills
than others and those success stories should be shared - what's worked with one
difficult client may work with another.Another important note: don't forget
to use those positive comments in your marketing efforts. Most clients are more
than happy to approve a quote or testimonial you can use in your marketing proposals
or collateral. Have a Plan of Action and
implement change. Nothing is worse than getting feedback and doing nothing
with it. If you're going to ask your client's opinion you have to be prepared
to do something with the comments if negative ones are made. I recommend putting
together a brief Plan of Action outlining what the firm can do to show the client
their comments were taken seriously. Have the project manager get back to the
client with what the firm is doing to improve or change based upon their comments.
From my experience conducting hundreds of client interviews throughout the
Western United States, I would agree with the above statistics - that the vast
majority of the time clients change consultants it is because of the person or
people assigned to their project. Joe Hurley with San Mateo County in California
said at a recent SMPS meeting on client loyalty, "Loyalty takes a tremendous
effort to establish, but is very easy to lose." Don't lose your valuable
clients. Ask them their opinion now!
MARKETLINK
is a marketing consulting firm with offices in Sacramento,
California and
Salt Lake City. MARKETLINK specializes in helping firms
develop long-term
relationships with their desired clients by conducting Client Perception Surveys,
Business Development Activities, Strategic Planning,
Public Relations, and
Marketing Training Seminars for both marketing and
technical staff. Please
contact MARKETLINK'S Salt Lake City office at
801-298-0215. Also review our
portfolio at www.marketlinkonline.com.
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