How to Service a Client Base
Clients need to feel valued to be happy. Value comprises the totality of their experience with your company, including your product or service offerings, your management of their account and their need to feel a sense of comfort that they have made the right choice in selecting your firm. Client service is the key to retaining clients over a long-term period. It is more efficient and less costly to keep an existing client than to chase after new ones. Servicing your client base should be an important part of your business's ongoing operations.
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Things You'll Need
- To service your client base, you will need the following:
- Paper and pen
- Telephone
- Industry insight and information
Instructions
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Analyze your client base to determine the current client service needs. List all your clients on a sheet of paper. Rank order them by the amount of revenue they contributed to your firm last year and year to date. Note their key management contacts. Ideally, you would want to allocate your time to those clients who have contributed the most to your bottom line. But it is not always that simple. Often, small clients will demand more of your time than larger ones because they lack depth of internal resources. Determine if the excessive time is warranted in terms of your firm's current or future profitability and business goals. If not warranted, talk to the small company about time resources management. Your goal is to align service levels and potential within your client base.
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Focus on their management staff; and with a few bullet points, define the personality traits of key individuals. Clients are people, and client service involves dealing with people's perceptions, expectations, and personalities. For example, perhaps your key point of contact with your largest client is disorganized, forgetful and with a tendency to blame others. This is a high-maintenance client who will require handholding and babysitting to ensure you do not end up getting blamed for his lack of oversight or, even worst, losing your bread and butter client because you did not factor in that individual's personal shortcomings into how you approached working with him.
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Know your clients' businesses, as well as your own, to truly be of value to them. Stay in touch. E-mail and instant messages have almost replaced the need for person-to-person calling. Do not fall into the trap of having an electronic-only relationship with important clients. Call your main clients every day and reach out to lesser clients at least once weekly. Get to know them on a personal level. Memorize their wives and children's names. Socialize with them, whenever possible. Keep them informed about current projects and industry news. Become a source of useful information and interesting ideas for growing their business.
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References
Resources
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