Each year, Julian Midwinter & Associates conducts many research projects, both on behalf of its professional service firm clients, and at an industry level.
Here are some of the conclusions we've drawn from our experience.
- clients who report their overall status as "standard" (or less than 4 out of 10) are often on the brink of becoming your competitor's client
- the minimum level of client satisfaction from which professional service forums can draw any comfort at all is "very satisfied" at least 8 out of 10
- professionals are often more concerned than their clients about price
- clients now regard high levels of responsiveness and accessibility as a "given" - returning calls promptly is not a service edge
- to understand client satisfaction with your service, you need to benchmark it against their satisfaction with your competitors service
- you can't afford to rest on client satisfaction until you are rated "outstanding" in every important category - even then, if your competitors are similarly rated, you have to do a whole lot more work
- high levels of clients satisfaction (9 out of 10 or above) correlate with high profit opportunities (but do not automatically translate to profitability)
- Julian Midwinter & Associate's findings are in line with those of leading researchers in other industries.
Client satisfaction is worth the effort - keeping a client is mostly a vastly better option than competing for a new one! (And, yes, there are a few clients who you and everyone else - can never satisfy).
|
