What the best firms do well

By studying what clients say about top-performing firms, beaton observes Client Choice Award winners do three things well:

1. They put clients first. Client Choice Award winners understand the primary reason for a firm’s existence is to meet clients’ needs. As former Scandinavian Airlines chief executive, Jan Carlzon, says in his book Moments of Truth: “If you can’t work out where and how you fit in this chain of service, then you don’t belong in the company.”

2. Their staff are seen as important as their clients. How employees feel they’re treated by a company is how they, in turn, treat clients. This is a variation on the well-known service profit chain where happy staff equates to happy clients and in turn happy owners (i.e. the firm makes healthy profits).

3. They are consistent. In order to provide an excellent client service experience, beaton’s analysis shows consistency is key. In the same way a few fielding lapses can lose a cricket match, a few ‘minor’ slip-ups drag down a firm’s performance. Clients have high expectations and the slightest error, delay or brusqueness of tone will be noted – and potentially be damaging.

“In the same way a few fielding lapses can lose a cricket match, a few ‘minor’ slip-ups drag down a firm’s performance.”

beaton’s research shows high-performing firms experience reduced cost in retaining and attracting talent as well as clients, higher staff morale and increased discretionary effort from staff and an increase in productivity and profitability.

Figure 1. Net Promoter Score trends in Australia (Click image to enlarge)

The chart above shows clients’ ratings of firms over nine years from 2012, using the Net Promoter Score (NPS). For any firm not actively improving its client service, this steady upward trend in the industry average NPS is a warning sign, says executive chairman Dr George Beaton. “If you stand still, you are actually sinking because you are not rising with the tide.”