If you don't listen to your clients, someone else willJeanne RinaldoMortgages,client communication
"Listen or be gone" should be your mantra in 2004. Successful
companies listen to their clients on a regular basis, not just
while they are going after their business. Unsuccessful companies
can't understand why their clients keep "asking the same stupid
questions," and eventually lose these clients.
Here's a little test to see how well your institution listens to
its clients:
1. Do you know what's important to your clients in the next two
to five years?
2. Do you know where their business comes from today and where they
expect it to come from tomorrow?
3. Do you understand the issues they are facing today?
4. Do you understand the larger meaning of your clients' day-to-day
concerns?
If you answered "yes" to all four questions, your institution
probably has a good track record getting and retaining clients
because you have a true understanding of what they want. If you
answered "no" to any of the questions, you've got some work to
do.
Right now, we are experiencing a unique window in time that can
help us improve our institutions' ability to actually hear our
clients. We have been through the most exhausting customer volume
we have ever experienced. That volume created a hectic business
environment in which there was less time available to actually
listen to our clients and make process improvements. All we could
do was keep our heads above water. The good news is that all the
volume tested our capabilities like they've never been tested
before. Looking back on this busy period allows us to review what
we did well and what we need to improve upon. Now that we have the
time and hindsight to make business adjustments, listening to our
clients can be a tremendous help in determining precisely what
changes to make and which frameworks to follow.
To hear what your clients are truly saying, you'll need to take
notice of information from a variety of levels in an organization.
From upper management, listen for information on strategic
direction--then you can consider whether it makes sense to work on
products to meet those upcoming needs. Members of the customer
support group talk to clients daily. From them, you'll learn
whether you've been meeting their client's standards and whether
they have issues that should be addressed. They are your sounding
board as to whether your processes are good, and they'll give you a
good indication of your best and worst practices.
Don't make the mistake of taking all of your information from
people on any one level. If you just go to the strategic-thinking
individuals, you won't learn about the day-to-day issues, but if
you just go to the customer support people, you'll never get past
the day-to-day concerns. Listen to both and create a system that
allows you to tie all that information together.
How do we listen?
So, how do we go about gathering all of the information and really
hear what our clients want to say? Here are some suggestions:
Survey clients
Client surveys are something many institutions know they should do,
but avoid. That's because they look at them as some kind of "report
card" on how well they are doing. Instead, I suggest you think
about client surveys as a way to treat your customers as partners.
When client surveys are done right, both the institution and its
clients develop a vested interest in making the relationship
better.
To get the true benefit of a client survey, you must ask the
questions that will help you become more effective. Avoid the urge
to structure the survey in such a way as to get the most positive
answers. Effective client surveys allow participants to give their
viewpoints, regardless of whether they're positive or negative. If
you're doing a survey to prove to people that you're doing a good
job, don't do it.
If you compose an effective client survey, expect to receive
complaints, and furthermore, be prepared to treat these complaints
as gifts. A client's negative feedback on a survey actually
demonstrates that they consider the relationship important, since
it reflects their desire to see a change for the better in the
relationship. It also means they expect you to pay attention to
what they say.
Last September, we surveyed our most active clients, hiring a
third party to do the survey and analyze its results (an idea I'd
strongly recommend). We asked many open-ended questions,
encouraging clients to honestly share their opinions. The results
were so useful, that we're already including some of the
suggestions in our own process improvement.
We undertook the survey in conjunction with an internal review
of our process. The results of the survey, plus the input from our
customer support staff and our internal process review, have
already allowed us to make important strategic and process
changes.
Listen to your staff
Work with your staff to take a good look at the day-to-day
questions that are coming in from clients. The customer service
people can help you understand what these routine questions really
mean. For example, suppose you're receiving questions everyday
about the status of delays in mortgage recording. Now, anyone in
mortgage processing knows that basic flaws in the recording system
nationwide cause these delays. We also recognize that there isn't
much any of us can do to change them. However, once you see that
there's a pattern of calls about this, it would be in your best
interest to proactively put out information about why these things
are happening. It may not be what they want to hear, but it shows
clients that you're listening to them.
Develop a relationship management program for your most
active clients
No matter how much technology we throw at our clients, businesses
will always be about relationships. The advent of the relationship
manager position came about because institutions recognized the
need for a formal process to build partnerships with clients. A
relationship manager is in charge of tying together all the
information about key clients, including day-to-day interactions
and strategic pieces of information. Relationship management means
understanding your business partnerships and having them work
effectively for both the client and the vendor. When it's done
right, clients and their vendors develop a better partnership
because they understand each other and each other's direction. This
is quite different than customer support that is focused on fixing
a specific problem. Relationship managers get to the root of
potential problems before they develop. These managers also make
sure clients know about upcoming changes that will affect them,
giving them enough time to react.
Don't equate crisis management with
listening
Listening to clients consistently is better for business than
paying attention to their concerns only when a problem or crisis
arises. In an emergency, you're only able to address complaints,
and your listening is limited to a specific issue. This is only an
illusion of true listening. If you listen to your clients
effectively and regularly, you'll see many crises coming early
enough to avoid them.
When business relationships are new and the client is
implementing the vendor's service, it's common for someone to show
up and act as if they are listening to the client, but once the
products are in place, this is not so common. A good company
continues that relationship and fine-tunes it whenever
necessary.
Effectively listening to clients is not only good for current
relationships, it helps an institution build products to fill
client needs, often before the need is evident. This keeps your
institution ahead of the competition and ahead of the curve. The
key is listening to information from all levels of your client's
organization, combining that information in order to determine what
your clients needs are and adjusting to those needs in order to
benefit you both.
Jeanne Rinaldo is vice president of relationship management
for Integrated Loan Services. She may be reached by phone at (800)
842-8423 or e-mail
[email protected].
