Client Service Ideas? It’s in the Doing.

Hoisted from Comments: Edi Osborne, Kevin Phillips.

Four Tough Client Service Problems: And dozens of possible solutions from staffers…

Osborne

…is getting a lot of buzz.

But some of the best has come from two, coincidentally, West Coast consultants.

Edi Osborne of MentorPlus writes: “I love all the ideas the group generated. I have only one thing to add. All the questions are more easily answered when you are only dealing with ideal clients.”

And she links to this checklist  to help choose the right clients in the first place:

Kevin Phillips, Director of Consulting Services, ProHorizons Network Inc., writes:

Phillips

There are a lot of great ideas here. The only problem is that lots of great ideas are impossible to execute.

Developing excellence in client service requires a change in organizational culture. And culture change is very difficult.

As valuable as a brainstorming session might be in shaking loose new ideas, of greater value is landing on identifying one or two behaviors that will move the entire organization in a new direction.

If the firm is profitable, it is probably doing a lot of things right. If the firm is human, there is probable one or two adjustments one could make to make it even more profitable. The trick is to identify them.

Before brainstorming solutions, it might be helpful to invest some energy in really understanding the firm’s culture.

To get at culture ask these questions:

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Posted at January 29, 2010
Filed Under BSG [CPA TRENDLINES] | 1 Comment

Comments

One Response to “Client Service Ideas? It’s in the Doing.”

  1. Edi Osborne on January 30th, 2010 11:40 am

    One other thought . . . Good client service is a natural extension of a happy, engaged team. Just like with everything we do in life, real change comes from the inside out. Anything less than wholesale commitment to change is generally viewed as “the thing of the month they want us to focus on – sit tight, this too shall pass”.

    I like your culture questions. I would just add this, “the fish stinks from the head down”. Good customer service starts with firm leaders providing good internal customer service. So often they impose change on the team without any real consequences for lack of follow through at the partner level.

    I have observed that the trend to let Partners “get away with anything” is changing. I remember sitting in a session with the exec team of a firm and hearing them say, “We’ll never change Partner X – He’ll be retiring in a few more years – and just look at his billing run.” Every time firms turn a blind eye toward Partners whose behavior is inconsistent with firm imperatives, it sends a message to the team about what is really important.

    The good news is that I have observed more and more firm leaders trending toward cutting loose partners that don’t manifest the firm’s values in everything they do. One firm leader told me recently, “The recession has given us the excuse we needed to prune the dead wood out of the firm.” I agree with pruning dead wood, but I just hope we don’t have to wait for a severe downturn to do it again.

    Coming back around to your insights about culture I believe the actions not taken usually speak louder than any mandates for change.

    Thanks for letting me get my two cents in.
    Edi

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