Will We Ever Return to Client Offices?
Will We Ever Return to Client Offices?
This December will have one notable difference for many in consultancy and those in client-facing roles across most professional-service sectors… no client visits.
Much more than an opportunity to pick up a few freebies (more likely if your client is a snack-food manufacturer than a high-end electronics business), the end of year client catch-up is an opportunity to review the year just gone, what went well and what can be improved upon; and discuss plans for the upcoming year.
Often an integral part of the ‘client management’ calendar, it can be invaluable in the development and continuation of the relationship, and good client managers will use it as an opportunity to gain invaluable insight on subjects from industry gossip to a heads-up on a new product launch.
Equally, for those in consultative industries it is also the best way to truly understand your client, to experience the culture of the business, the dynamics of the office and in doing so, to represent them in the best possible way.
It is in December that there is often the highest density of these meetings, with the season’s festivities promoting a willingness to take time out, and perhaps even a desire to be out of your ‘home’ office as things wind down before the holidays. People can easily end up spending more time at client offices than in their own, a situation that wouldn’t normally raise eyebrows, but this year would have been highly ‘COVID uncompliant’.
So, this year in light of the COVID crisis, these face-to-face meetings have, along with around 10 months of briefing meetings, pitches, interviews, product launches and review meetings, been replaced with virtual meetings, and ZOOM, Skype, Teams etc. have become the vehicle to meet instead of Taxis and the Tube; this all raises the question, will there ever be a return to client sites?
The Pros
One of the lessons that will have been clearest in 2020 is that nothing replaces human interaction; as good as the digital tools are, and most of us have used them this year for personal as well as business meetings, they do not replace the feeling of being in a room with a person.
Fundamentally humans are sociable creatures, we evolved in packs, through living in tribes and in more recent times, have gravitated in large number to big towns and cities partly because of the opportunities that they provide to us, but more often because of the sense of being involved in a community through every part of our daily lives.
It is even this need for interaction that has driven the growth of social media platforms; for those times when we are not with our friends, loved ones and a selection of high-profile celebrities that we ‘follow’, we still know what they are doing/wearing/eating/listening to.
In the end however, any real two-way relationship cannot grow without interaction in-person, hearing someone’s voice over the phone or seeing their mannerisms over the internet is not quite the same as being in a room and seeing their body language etc.
Very few would disagree, this is just as fundamental to a business relationship as it is to a personal one, if you are trusting your brand or entire business to someone, you need to have a good level of knowledge about them as people.
The Cons
I doubt anyone who has ever worked in a client-facing role will have not questioned the value in a 5-hour round trip for a 55-minute meeting, and if you go beyond analysing the time invested and consider the carbon-footprint, it becomes increasing hard to justify; equally those who have worked with overseas clients will tell you that even with a full day of meetings, the time spent travelling and the costs of airline tickets, hotel-rooms etc. make such a journey a difficult one to balance.
This year, these meetings will largely have taken place from home, with zero travel time the 10-minutes before hand involve a change of shirt and the selection of a virtual background rather than making small-talk with a receptionist.
The meetings themselves are likely to have been more focused, and therefore with the lower time investment, have the potential to be more productive; small-talk and gossip is not completely removed from these meetings, but there often a greater awareness of the schedule and working to it (particularly if you use a free account with a 40-minute limit).
With this in mind, surely now is the time to reconsider what the value is in such meetings taking place face-to-face, should multi-stakeholder meetings and those that involve travel over any long-distance be replaced with their digital counterparts and only those for which meeting in person is absolutely essential should actually be that… in person? perhaps meetings in the future should be a little like the offices of the future.
The Meeting (R)evolution
The ‘new’ normal doesn’t have to mean the end to client meetings, in fact, it could be the start of a closer, more interactive relationship with our clients.
For starters, I cannot imagine a time when a formal and complex business relationship will not be preceded by some form of in-person interaction, perhaps during the delivery of a pitch; equally, when the COVID vaccination program has been rolled out to a wider percentage of the population, I think we can expect to see review meetings etc. take place once more.
However, with growing use of digital tools in businesses to support flexible working, SaaS businesses continue to innovate to bring us ways of collaborating, this is the time that professional-services companies can look to change how they interact with their clients; using technology as a facilitator of these more collegiate relationships, strengthened by increasing regularity of contact, and a greater level of transparency through tools to run projects, campaigns etc unlocks benefits to clients, businesses and the environment moving forwards.
If you are keen to discuss how your business can transform to everyone’s benefit, contact intelliHub Consulting today for you complementary Transformation Readiness Assessment.