Manage your clients
Clients of professional service firms want to invigorate their own businesses with attributes such as customer focus, responsiveness, flexibility and a commitment to value. They are looking for exactly the same from their professional advisors.
The firms that are leaders in client management are those that ensure they constantly listen to and deliver exceptional value to the client. They do this by adapting to innovative and flexible ways of working, providing the client with insight and experience from across the firm, and constantly thinking ahead for the client’s business.
This approach enables them to surprise and delight the client by coming up with options and recommendations wider than their brief, and service and responsiveness beyond the usual call of duty.
PA has found that most high-performing professional service firms tend to concentrate on four key activities:
- Understanding which clients are the most valuable to focus on – and then targeting effort on the 20% of clients who deliver 80% of their profitable revenue
- Offering innovative ways of working that provide clients with added value while also making the firm easier to do business with. This might include online collaboration, case tracking and real-time invoice checking
- Managing and sharing information seamlessly across the firm, and using it to continually review and refresh their products and services. The firm’s information and knowledge are a vital resource, and the ability to turn them into industry insights, products and services is a core competence of a successful firm.
- Actively managing client satisfaction by eliciting and capturing feedback from clients both during and after each engagement, and using this to refine the firm’s approach to sustaining and improving client satisfaction.
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