I recently attended a Happy Clients Conference where the room was filled with people who were all responsible for client service in one way shape or form. The topics being discussed on the day all had a similar thread running through them: how can we keep our clients happy?
Upon returning from the event I decided to look up the definition of the word happy. It has multiple definitions depending on its use but there are two that apply to the world of client service:
- Feeling or showing pleasure or contentment
- Having a sense of trust and confidence in (a person, arrangement or situation)
Judging whether a client feels pleasure or contentment in the work that is done for them by their agency is difficult. Agencies often get excited at a great piece of coverage or an opportunity secured only for the client to seem far less enthused by the result. It can be a very challenging situation for a team to navigate and leaves a sense that your work isn’t valued despite frequent overservicing.
Trust and confidence, however, are really important aspects of a long-term, successful partnership with your clients. This needs to be a two-way street with both parties feeling that they can trust one another and have confidence that necessary actions are being done to drive a programme forward. This is much easier to measure. At Skout we do this through regular surveys with our clients and also have a client NPS quarterly survey.
The other really clear message from the conference was that client service is about human interaction (not AI). We have become far too used to sitting behind our laptop screens on Teams and Zoom calls trying to work out whether the person or people on the other side of the screen are happy with the services being delivered. In fact, with AI encroaching further and further into our world, it’s not difficult to see a time when most of our interactions with clients are AI generated and all sent on email.
The time has come to go back to the ‘old’ ways of doing things – getting in your car or on a train and spending quality time face-to-face with your clients. Seeing them regularly in this environment allows you to cut through the digital smokescreen and get to the heart of any issues much faster. It also allows you to develop a much deeper understanding of your clients as people and therefore improve the long term relationship between client and agency, something that is hugely beneficial when problems arise.
Many years ago when I was first starting out in my career, I had a great boss who told me that the most valuable thing that I could do was to make my clients my best friends because it creates a stronger partnership than one where you are just seen as ‘the agency’. I have always held onto this piece of advice and still use it today to guide me in all my client interactions. In fact, I encourage the team to get to really know our clients, understand what makes them tick and find out more about them as people. You would be amazed how much a client appreciates small gestures like remembering their birthdays or chatting to them about their favourite sport or latest holiday.
So my key takeaway from this event filled with like-minded people was this:
Be human in your approach, understand your clients on a personal level and make them shine on a professional level with the fantastic results you create for them.
