What do your clients really think of you?

This is a question I often ask my clients. It’s met with a mixture of reactions, sometimes confidence that they know exactly what their clients think, sometimes puzzlement as to why I’ve asked and on occasion horror that they should even care.

So, first things first: you do want to know what your clients think, don’t you?

I suggest you do.

It might feel comfortable and cosy to keep our heads down and carry on, but learning what your clients think of the service they receive from you can be invaluable in so many ways:

• Spotting threats – especially spotting potential defections and the reasons why
• Seeing opportunities – your clients will tell you better than you can, what you could do differently that they would value
• Getting a pat on the back – you’re bound to have some clients who are delighted with your service – and it’s great to hear that
• Learning about the competition – framed in the right way your questions can help you explore much more than just your relationship with the client
• Prioritising areas for improvement – let your clients tell you the things that make the most difference to them and then put a focus on those areas, rather than the things you think are important.

How are you going to find out what clients think of your business and the service they receive?

...if all else fails - guess

Well you could guess, based on their behaviour, especially how often they thank you for a job well done, their willingness to provide you with testimonials and the frequency with which they refer other people to you.

Guessing isn’t great – but even the process of consideration you would need to go through is useful and if it gets you quantifying things like how many referrals you get or prompts you to ask for testimonials or case studies, it’s been a useful exercise.

...ask the team

A little bit more advanced than the guessing game is asking around within your business. If nothing else it will give you a feeling of what current perceptions are. Do you think clients are dissatisfied, if so with what; are they content generally but ‘moan’ about one thing in particular?

Sometimes by asking the front line staff, whether that’s the receptionist or person who answers the phone, you will start to hear what your clients think. Do you give permission to your call handlers to tell you when clients complain that they can’t get hold of you? Do you have a system for capturing the news that a competitor down the road has just launched a new service they are targeting to your clients?

Putting an internal focus on what clients think of your business and the services you provide will force you to see things more clearly from a client’s point of view.

...ask your clients

Perhaps obviously this is the best way to find out what clients really think, but it can be the most difficult, especially if you haven’t done your guessing and internal asking around first. There’s a real danger of paying lip service to client surveys without really getting to the bottom of what it is you want to know and being ready to hear and respond to the results.

Of course there are a number of considerations before you start asking and you wouldn’t be alone if you were heard to cry things like: we don’t know what to ask; we don’t know who should do the asking or even we may not want to hear the results! This last point is really important actually because unless you are prepared to really listen to and understand what your clients are saying you almost may as well not bother asking.

You can make the process of asking clients what they think as formal or as informal as you like but you do need to follow some simple rules;

1. Decide on the questions to use and make sure they are not loaded. If you are doing a formal survey (especially self completion questionnaires) you need to make sure the questions can be understood and are not open to misinterpretation. If you want to know what clients think of you it’s often useful to have a scale rather than yes/no answers. Hopefully the questions will have been prompted by your ‘guesswork’ and ‘ask the team’ exercises earlier.
2. Whoever does the asking must really listen and make notes. Don’t defend, explain or disagree. You’re asking for the clients’ opinion and views. They may well have different views to you, but that’s OK. It’s often better to have someone who doesn’t normally have contact with the client do the interview, otherwise there is a real danger that the client will hold back.
3. Ask everyone the same set of basic questions. This is important if you are to draw any proper conclusions. Obviously if you are going the formal route and using a survey this is taken as read, but even if you are doing your research in an informal way through client meetings or whenever you speak to them on the phone, make sure you are asking the same questions.
4. Make sure you have some questions that allow you to produce a measure of client satisfaction. It might be a simple –‘how satisfied are you with our service on a scale of 1 – 10?’ or ‘how likely are you to recommend us?’ Choose something relevant to your business and something you want to monitor on a regular basis. This way, with repeated research you can build a picture of improvements made or spot drops in client satisfaction and do something about it.

If having read this you are still wondering what you clients really think then maybe it’s time to bite the bullet and arrange to find out.

Until next time, here’s to us all having lots of very satisfied clients.

Further reading:

Research – using the right tools for the job

4 steps to profitable competitor intelligence

As a marketing coach Teresa works with new marketing managers and small business owners to enhance their marketing performance.
Written by Teresa Harris, Second Opinion Marketing. Teresa is an independent marketing consultant working with professional practices, small businesses and public sector bodies to develop effective marketing plans which achieve their business objectives.

Contact Teresa on 01789 740396 or by email.

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