Satisfied clients mean greater retention, more up-selling and referrals, and a pleasant working environment for the client AND your team. Well-designed business processes will help your team keep clients happy and get the most out of client relationships.
Does your entire team care deeply about the wellbeing of all your clients, all the time? Are they always curious about clients, proactively looking for ways to help?
If you can confidently answer 'yes' to these questions, you are in a very fortunate (and rare) position. You probably have very high levels of client satisfaction, retention, up-selling and referrals.
More likely, while you encourage your team to proactively support clients, you'll also need BUSINESS PROCESSES to promote productive relationships with clients. Let's look at examples of these processes.
Collaboration (and information sharing)
Your clients may interact with multiple people in your organization: Partners, Client Service Coordinators, Accountants, the Administration team and so on. Each interaction is a source of valuable information but information that is not shared gets 'lost'... to the detriment of the client and your firm.
Ensure learnings on key clients are shared via a quick, frequent meeting (or in your CRM) and generate ideas for proactive outreach.
Classification
You are unlikely to optimize the relationship with ALL clients... and that's OK. Client classification involves identifying clients you want to invest in, perhaps because of growth opportunities, their reputation, profitability of the work, referrals and so on.
Originally published in Panalitix
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.