Client-based Management White Paper Series
(download PDF)
Part 2 - Relationship Management
In our last newsletter (Elevating your game – Summer 2010) we began our white paper series on Client Based Management with a focus on Client Evaluation. Having developed a methodology for evaluating clients (as well as other important contacts of the firm) and done the grading discussed in that article, you can then consider how each group of clients and contacts should be treated. We call this Relationship Management.
Certainly your clients respect and value your professionalism and your services. Your best clients will place additional value on a relationship that goes beyond the engagement letter. Nevertheless, it is easy to get so busy working on engagements that relationship management is one of those “should dos” that never seem to get done. What kind of treatment do your best clients deserve? Can that be systematized? Can compliance be monitored and measured? You decide what the appropriate response is to the first question – but the answer to the second two questions is YES.
As an example, let’s say you decide that one or more persons at an “A” client should have the following non-engagement-related “touches.”
- Twice a year – dinner with the relationship partner
- Quarterly – a general business bull session phone call. (How are things? Anything new? Any
frustrations? How can we help?) - If you do periodic seminars, or outings, the key people at these clients should be invited as
appropriate. - An annual planning session, reviewing the business objectives and your firm’s ability to help.
- Send appropriate firm newsletters, articles of interest, etc.
These can be created as to-do items with target dates, and appropriate personnel assigned.
The same type of thinking applies to your B clients, and C clients.
These activities may identify immediate needs of your clients and lead to engagements in new services to them. They may also assist you in longer range “targeting” of clients as you identify additional services that you are not currently providing. This targeting should also be tracked for appropriate follow up. We will discuss targeting in a later issue.
A timesheet entry should be all that it takes to record the time spent in these activities and mark the specific items as completed on that date. It then becomes a matter of developing appropriate reports and/or dashboard apps to evaluate staff compliance with the process and discover uncompleted activities.
Ideally, time spent on relationship management and new business development should be budgeted, measured in utilization and productivity reporting, and rewarded appropriately in staff evaluation and management compensation (perhaps the most important factor for the critical “buy-in”). This may also apply to other firm-building activities that are often lost in “non-chargeable” time.
A word about Accountability
Questions will arise from the management group as to the additional effort on their part. These are busy, fast-paced and high-priced professionals, and they need to be convinced of the necessity and value of spending a portion of their time doing “marketing” or “CRM.” On the other hand, your “rain-makers” may resent having to be more formal about what to them is natural, easy and fun. Rather than overused, misused and vague buzz words, it’s important to use terminology that can focus the effort. It’s more difficult to argue with maximizing the retention of good clients, the productivity and morale of your professional staff, and making the business development process and revenue forecasting more precise than quarterly rough estimates.
Another key is being able to demonstrate to the management group that this need not add a lot of burden to their day. The best systems provide an integrated interface and an input system that uses the same timesheets for entering time spent and scheduling appointments and tasks. In addition, they provide centralized contact management showing multiple relationships, direct interface to MS Outlook, and access through PDAs such as Blackberry and iPhone.
This is why we firmly believe that CRM should be an integral part of the firm’s practice management system. Other reasons?
- One source of truth – one database – no data duplication.
- The practice management system is available and known to all, minimizing training and IT involvement.
- Separate CRM systems tend to get relegated to administrative “marketing” staff and are seldom used by the partners and managers on the front line.
Continuing with this series In future newsletters we will discuss:
Targeting (Cross Selling the Client Base)
Quantifying Opportunity
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