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PM Forum - Dublin
Seeing the world through clients' eyes - maximising the value of client intelligence
In a shrinking economy, with less opportunity to win new business, maximising the revenue potential of a company’s existing clients is the key to survival – this was the message from customer insight expert Dorothy Kelly of Distinct Consulting at a recent PM Forum event entitled “Seeing the world through clients’ eyes” in Dublin.
To generate true client intelligence, it is important to combine all available sources of client information, according to Kelly. For a professional services company, this could include secondary research and syndicated studies, internal data from decision makers, primary research data (qualitative and quantitative), as well as ‘softer’ information, such as leveraging the contact networks of fee earners within the business and harnessing tacit knowledge.
Building a detailed picture of your clients using intelligence helps answer key questions such as who your company’s most valuable customers are; what they need from your business; how your company’s proposition meets their needs; how are they behaving now and how would you like them to behave in the future; as well as the underlying beliefs and values that underpin their behaviour.
When the customer intelligence has been generated, what should it be used for? The key question to ask of every piece of customer intelligence is ‘So What?’ Fascinating facts may have been generated as part of the process but that’s not an end in itself, according to Kelly. The company’s action plan should be developed from the intelligence and insight gathered. This can start with insight-driven proposition development and end with the operational plan as to how the proposition will be marketed. This plan will define who you are targeting; why they would be interested in the proposition; what you are targeting them with and when you will target them.
The second speaker of the evening, Tim Nisus of UK-based professional services consultancy, Nisus Consulting, examined the thorny issue of the use of the billable hour - what changes clients say they want in fee structures and what they're doing in practice.
Drawing on the results of a major survey of FTSE companies in relation to legal services conducted by Nisus, Nightingale told attendees that 85% of firms surveyed anticipate lower legal spend in 2010/11. Key client concerns around fees included transparency, the importance of staying on budget, frequency of invoicing and inappropriate charges.
Another trend to emerge from the research was the increasing segmentation of panels by FTSE firms, based on the type of work involved – for example, a willingness to pay higher fees for the use of ‘premium’ advisers for high-level, strategic work.
A small tier of elite firms designated as 'first among equals' by FTSE companies was also identified by the research. Nightingale went on to outline the service and behavioural traits of firms that are rated as being first among equal, with the ability to think strategically cited as the most valued attribute of a legal firm, according to the companies surveyed.
The overall message from the event was clear – in this market, getting to know the clients you have and safeguarding existing relationships will be the key to survival for professional services firms.
Martha Kavanagh
Drury Communications
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