Consistently nurturing long-term client relationships and adding value are essential to maintaining loyalty and avoiding complacency.
The joke goes something like this: A man passes away and has to choose to spend eternity in heaven or hell. He visits heaven and has a beautiful time connecting with family and friends. He then visits hell and is surprised. He sees some old friends, and they spend the day playing golf, enjoying whisky and cigars, and capping the day off with a big steak dinner. He returns to St. Peter and decides to pick the latter destination. When he returns downstairs, he’s met with a blast of heat and the odor of brimstone. Everything around him is burning and horrible. He sees Satan and asks, “What happened? Yesterday, there was golf and good times, but now it’s all gone. Why?”
Satan replies, “Yesterday, you were a prospect. Today, you’re a client.”
Funny, not funny. The story above usually elicits a chuckle or two followed by a bit of a cringe because it can ring true. In the AEC industry, we often quote the percentage of our business that comes from repeat clients. And repeat clients are fabulous because you can build long-term relationships with them and work together for years. The other side of the sword is that you can start to take them for granted, to think they’ll always be around.
In 1989, United Airlines released a commercial titled “The Speech,” and it’s one of the best ever. Thanks to the interwebs, you can still find it today. In it, a manager calls his team together and informs them that a 20-year client has fired them, saying, “They don’t know us anymore.” He believes it’s because phone calls and faxes (remember…1989) have replaced personal attention. He passes out plane tickets to everyone to see their clients and heads himself to the client who fired them.
Fast-forward to 2024. One can argue that phone calls and faxes have been replaced with email and text messages and connectivity apps, but that’s not the point I want to make.
The heart of “The Speech” is that his team was taking their relationships with their clients for granted and not giving them the attention they needed to thrive. They weren’t nurturing connections as they likely did when they were shiny and new.
Start with the top. How you treat all your clients should be consistent with your firm’s core values and indicative of what you consider “client service.” This level you strive not to fall below serves as the core of your business’s client-focused approach.
Established, long-term clients deserve special attention, care, and, yes, maintenance to continue to grow. These are your very best clients, the ones others want to poach and that you definitely don’t want to lose. There are many ways you can determine this list, and the criteria used should be consistent with your firm’s culture and core values, and it often comes down to more than money.
One way is to rank your clients by one-three-five year net service revenue. The five-year numbers reflect the mainstays, while the one-year values help identify the up-and-comers. Next, compare how these rank in profitability across the same periods. You’ll find that the lists likely don’t fully align. Inevitably, there will be large-revenue clients whom you struggle to make profitable. Not a deal killer, but definitely something to consider. Then you might parse the list by other, softer factors: which bring the work we most enjoy doing, which are the best to work with, etc.
Be the “partner” in partnership. That’s your list. Start there. Look for ways to enhance your services to them. Look for additional opportunities to make them successful beyond providing quality work. Can you help them with business development? In community outreach? In brand awareness? What will make them say, “This is the only firm we want to work with?”
Providing quality service to all your clients is essential to your firm’s success. Looking for ways to add value to your best clients will only make a good thing better.
Brad Thurman, PE, FSMPS, CPSM, is a principal and chief marketing officer at Wallace Design Collective, PC. Contact him at brad.thurman@wallace.design.
