Client service is easy, right?
Robert Solomon
Consultant, coach, and workshop leader, author of the widely read and respected book, "The Art of Client Service," expert in achieving behavior change with advertising/marketing/PR agencies, clients, and individuals.
Client service was all-but-lost in the distant parking lot of my mind when I read a New York Times review of the new movie, “The Outrun.”? The film is a recovery narrative; the drug being abused is alcohol.? You want remote from the work I do?? This was beyond remotely remote.
It remained that way until I awoke to this simple, succinct, and revealing quote from the film,
“It never gets easy; it just gets less hard.”?
The person saying the line is a sober alcoholic, recounting this bit of sensible reality to the movie’s protagonist.? At its core ?the movie confronts this question:? If you’re an alcoholic, can sobriety be compatible with a happy life?
I get that, but turning to less fraught, less emotionally loaded matters – something that has absolutely nothing to do with the movie – what if the subject isn’t alcohol addiction, but instead is about client service, something just about everyone has concluded is easy?
Which reminds me of something said in The Art of Client Service’s admittedly promotionally hyperbolic but largely accurate dust-jacket claim, that,
“Serving clients should be simple, except it isn’t. Solving problems should be easy, but almost never is.? Very few people do these things well, and many do them poorly, which explains why so many accounts go into review, so many client people express profound unhappiness with their agencies, and so many agency people remain bewildered by a business that grows more complex as they become increasingly less able to deal with markets splintering, media expanding, budgets tightening, and schedules compressing.”
Let’s say you’re a person devoted to client service.? You do 999 things right, no one notices; that’s you just doing your job.? You do one thing wrong, everybody notices.? That’s you screwing up.
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It matters not if fault lies elsewhere; the? honorable person in you doesn’t assign blame to others; instead, you own it yourself, understanding this is a hard business, with scant recognition and little credit.
So how do you make a hard business “less hard?”
Start by doing the simple, obvious, expected things consistently:? you show up on time; you know when to speak (when necessary); you know when to listen (always).? You follow up, meaning when a client calls, email, or texts, you respond promptly.? You have an in-person or video-based client meeting; a clear, to-the-point conference report follows, capturing next steps and who is responsible for seeing they get done.
Soon you graduate to something more challenging: ?a schedule that reflects reality; a budget that’s projectably accurate and honest.
You advance further, mastering the nuanced requirements of writing a compelling letter of proposal, a concise Creative Brief, a convicted point-of-view piece, or a persuasive presentation.
Finally, you achieve a modicum of mastery, best captured and explained ?in the presentation I gave at last year’s International Advertising Association’s annual conference, “Why Client Service is an Art,” which tells of my colleague Jane Gardner’s unanticipated, unscripted, in-the-moment brilliance when both client and agency sorely needed it most.
You learn to command these capabilities and skills by staying at it, by being consistent and committed.? As time passes, the “it’s never easy” part evolves to the, “it becomes less hard” part.
Who benefits from the improvement?
Your clients, your colleagues, you of course, and, needless to say, your career.