Is Your Firm’s Corporate Culture Getting in the Way of Great Client Service?

Developing excellence in client service requires a change in organizational culture.

Kevin Phillips
Kevin Phillips, director of consulting services, ProHorizons Network Inc.

And culture change is very difficult.

As valuable as a brainstorming session might be in shaking loose new ideas, Kevin Phillips, director of consulting services at ProHorizons Network Inc. says it’s even better to identify just 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,” he says. “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.”

To get at culture, Phillips recommends ask these questions:

  1. What behaviors do we repeat over and over again out of habit that limits the quality of our customer service?
  2. In what ways to do each each staff member feel constrained, limited or shut down? Where do these experiences overlap?
  3. Who sets the cultural norm around here? And what benefit does the norm-setter gain at the expense of better customer service?

So before brainstorming begins, it might be helpful to invest some energy in really understanding the firm’s culture.