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How Relevant Are You Really To Your Clients?

Guest post by: Jenny Stilwell

Article Overview: Would any of your clients betray you? Would you have any warning? Any why would they betray you? They would if you were no longer relevant to their business. I want to take this opportunity to outline a way to help optimize your core business in a difficult market.

How Relevant Are You Really To Your Clients?

Would any of your clients betray you? Would you have any warning? Any why would they betray you? They would if you were no longer relevant to their business. I want to take this opportunity to outline a way to help optimize your core business in a difficult market.

A global tier one consulting firm developed a score called the NPS - Net Promoter Score. They use it with their multinational clients to determine how close they are to their clients and therefore how secure that relationship is. The essence of it is, how well would your clients really speak of you to others and how important are you really to their business.

A high rating with customers is essential if your business is to successfully ride the recession. It is now more important than ever to have a strategic focus to protect your greatest asset - your customers.

We have done several surveys on behalf of our clients to determine their ‘Customer Relevance Score'. We use six questions and their associated feedback to deliver results that will enable you to constantly stay ahead of the pack in servicing your customers. The end result is a score you can track that effectively ‘protects' your position with your key customers and continues to make you relevant to their business.

It is also a great customer service tool from the client's perspective, just because your have taken the time to ask what they think, want and need. And, some of the results that are uncovered include feedback on how to strengthen your relevance to your client's business, and what you need to do to build or maintain secure relationships.

For companies that deal with retailers, there are many competitors jockeying for shelf space and working to replace you. For those who deal with corporate clients, the competition is just as intense to secure as much as possible of corporate spending budgets.

Clients don't always complain if your service is no longer relevant to them. They just ‘go'.

If you don't ask, you may be exposing your business to a potential risk. Isn't it worth asking the question?

There are many benefits in identifying your Customer Relevance Score now:

- If you don't take the time to do it, your competitors will - it will be good for your customers to see you take the lead

- In a difficult market, you want insightful information on what really strengthens your business position with your customers - this is the best way to get it

- You can get feedback from more than one contact in the organisation, providing a more holistic perspective of your company

- It's the best way to discover if you could be lifting your game, and in what way

- It can be done quickly, in a way that is convenient for your customers, and at minimal cost to you

Once you have this information - your score - you can use it in your business as a KPI that is measured each year.

One of my clients, always mindful of minimising risk in their business, and adopting innovation in everything they do, now uses this score and what it tells them to stay as close to their clients as possible. There is limited room for a competitor to take their place and they want to keep it that way!

If your business targets high net worth individuals, for example, this is especially important, as the level of service these clients receive must be of a very high level in line with their fees!

I undertook this exercise on behalf of a business advisor and a financial advisor, and both received very low scores. The potential risk of their clients moving to another firm was high. For both firms, the level of service they received was not of high perceived value and for both again, their service offerings were confusing and as such, seen as not particularly relevant. Needless to say, they weren't happy with their respective results, but at least we could then put a plan of action in place to address these risk exposures.

If you are in a highly competitive market where competitors are always pitching to win your clients over, for example in PR, recruitment, design and branding firms, this is an essential tool.

You can do this exercise yourself or you could approach us to do it for you. Either way, if you have high value clients in particular, just make sure you do something to assess and protect your relationship with them!

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Article Tags: client base, core business



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