Tara Weintritt from Wicker Park Group led an interactive discussion on client feedback programs for the Baltimore City Group on October 7, sharing her experiences and expertise gathered through conducting more than 1,300 interviews.
Recently, there has been a big push around client feedback programs. Champion clients can be a huge sales force. Conversely, if something went wrong, client service interviews provide your firm with an opportunity to ask them what a solution looks like to them.
Clients want to know three things: (1) Can you fix my problem?; (2) Will you make my life easier?; and (3) Do I like you as a person?
When conducting a client service interview, keep in mind these key best practices:
- Ideally, interviews should be conducted by someone at your firm and other than the relationship partner, allowing for candid conversation. When possible and appropriate, the additional presence of your managing partner can go a long way.
- One size doesn’t fit all. Personalize each interview to reflect that particular client’s needs and the specific feedback you are seeking.
- Meet one-on-one with each individual. Afterwards, you can take the entire client team out to a group lunch. But don’t try to conduct any interviews over lunch; it’s too awkward to take notes while you are eating.
- Suggest 45 minutes for an in-person interview or 30 minutes for a phone interview. Usually, the interview will go over, but let them know when the time limit is reached and that you are respectful of their time. Of course, in-person interviews are always the preference.
- Do NOT respond; probe. Follow the 80/20 rule. (i.e., they should be doing 80 percent of the talking.)
- Do NOT turn client interviews into a sales pitch. Let them know you are there to talk about them, but that you are happy to follow up later about new opportunities for work.
- Over-communicate your feedback with your firm – personalize the positive and depersonalize the negative
By Ashley Smith, Business Development Manager, Herrmann Advertising | Branding | Technology, for the September/October issue of the Capital Ideas Newsletter.