For professional services firms, relationship intelligence and collaboration can have a dramatic effect on customer experience
In professional services, relationships are everything. Often, service firms expect all communications for an account to go through one account manager. If you are trying to pitch a new service to an account or reach a new contact at an account, all roads usually point back to an account manager. However, you may have other resources that have relationships with this account, either in a different department or location. It’s important that you have technology that enables communication internally so your teams can connect and share account-level details before contacting an account. Customers want you to demonstrate an understanding of their business, their industry and their pain points.
When you have technology that can facilitate conversations internally, you are building what’s called relationship intelligence. By connecting your account team to your business development team and to your sales team, you strengthen the amount of intelligence you have on your customers and allow each department to provide a better and more customised level of service. The key to success is technology that breaks down the traditional barriers or silos of information that exist in each department. Departmental transparency leads to efficiency and a more integrated workforce.
Collaborate to impress customers
Firms that enable relationship intelligence and encourage collaboration through removal of silo practices will naturally impress customers. So, how do you create a collaborative environment? Start by embracing technology such as shared workspaces where your team can come together and work on assignments collectively. By doing this, your team gains visibility into key project milestones and can work together on project deliverables. And don’t forget about providing transparency to your customers. By using a customer portal, you can showcase project updates directly to your customers and allow them to provide feedback across your team.
Productivity is about working together, in unison, using the same tools. If you’re using several different internal tools to manage projects and client communications, you’re missing an opportunity to better connect with your team and better connect with your customers. When teams are in sync and are providing regular and consistent project updates, customers take notice.
Learning to improve
All this data and the intelligence it provides not only gives you the ability to impress customers and work collaboratively, it also enables the organisation, from the Exec to the administrator, to gain full insight into the customer, their requirements and their experiences (CX) with the company. This makes it much easier for all levels of staff to be empowered and to identify issues and to make recommendations for change.
