In a competitive marketplace where professional services firms are constantly vying to increase their bottom lines and diversify their portfolios, keeping your current stable of clients happy is of the utmost importance. While scoring a win for a client will help keep you in their good graces, there’s more to client satisfaction than achieving a successful outcome. That’s because client satisfaction also corresponds with the way you provide services, from responsiveness and accessibility of service professionals to the invoicing process, etc. Put another way, bad client service is excellent for your competition.
Marketing and business development staff members play a critical role in assessing client satisfaction. One of the best ways they can do this is by surveying clients on a periodic basis. Such client satisfaction surveys provide firm management with essential information about how well the firm conducts business. Results can help encourage tactics that are already working and identify gaps that have to be addressed.
If you’re considering conducting a client satisfaction survey, here are a few tips.
- Know your goals: Understand the purpose of each question. What type of insight do you hope to gain from client responses?
- Be concise: Questions have to be straightforward and to the point. Avoid double-barreled questions like “Are you satisfied with our services and our responsiveness?”
- Frontload with multiple choice: “Yes/No” and multiple choice questions are a great way to start a survey, because they require little time to answer and get your respondents engaged.
- Use open-ended questions: Later in your survey, consider incorporating a few open-ended questions to provide clients with space to elaborate on their responses.
- Thank the client: Whether you provide a simple email or card expressing your gratitude or a modest gift, find some way to thank your clients for taking time to participate.
How Can Jaffe Help You with Client Surveys?
Jaffe’s business development consultants have years of experience in assisting professional services firms develop, deploy and analyze client satisfaction surveys. We collaborate with your leadership to identify the overall goals of a client satisfaction survey and develop a format that best fits your firm’s needs. In addition to developing written survey questions, our professionals can follow up with your client respondents to conduct one-on-one interviews that provide even-deeper insights into client perceptions. Once we have collected and reviewed survey data, we can deliver a full report to firm management to reflect areas where the firm is succeeding, as well as areas where the firm can improve and strengthen its client relationships.
For more information about how Jaffe can help you develop client satisfaction surveys, contact Terry M. Isner, CEO/Owner, Marketing & Branding, at tisner@jaffepr.com.