What Makes One Client Happy May Annoy Another

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article (subscription may be required) in its “The Journal Report” section entitled “Good Service Gone Bad” which talks about the perils of over-zealous and rigidly programmed customer service.  I like the article’s sub-title “What makes one consumer happy may annoy another”.  For consumer focused businesses it can be a real challenge trying to determine the specific preferences of individual consumers across a diverse customer base some of whom want highly attentive service while others would rather be left to help themselves.

But for Professional Services Firms there is no excuse for not taking the time to understand how clients want to be served – and I’m not talking about technical expertise.  I’m talking about their preferences for client service aspects like communication (e-mail, phone, face to face), project status reporting (daily, weekly – and what detail?) or marketing (prefer business events, white papers or sports events etc.).

Very few firms seem to believe that clients would be different in their preferences – as if there is some definitive “professional services” standard for responsive, personalized, quality service which they all claim on their websites to deliver – and which many fall short on achieving.

The reality is that clients have preferences for how they want to be treated as a business person – just as they have preferences for how they want to be treated as a consumer.  The firms that can focus on this and build it into their strategy – by targeting firms not just on industry, solution or financial criteria but on their client service preferences have a tremendous opportunity to grow a loyal client base, a stellar reputation and professional staff motivated by knowing that they are delivering service to clients the way they want it.

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