Verbatim: What Clients Say
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A Harvard Business Review Classic on Customer Loyalty, Read It or Re-read It
In a recent issue of the Legal Marketing Association's Strategies magazine, Executive Editor Melissa Hoff recommended reading the Harvard Business Review article "Why Satisfied Customers Defect," a classic by Thomas Jones and W. Earl Sasser. "This article is more relevant than ever," Hoff said. "Read it if you haven't already. Read it again if you have."
According to Jones and Sasser, "A completely satisfied customer typically believes that the company excels in understanding and addressing his or her personal preferences, values, needs, or problems. To figure out how to satisfy customers in this fashion, a company has to excel at listening to customers and interpreting what they are saying."
Jones and Sasser summed up this timeless article by saying: "In the final analysis, the company that will survive and flourish over the long term is the one that continually works to understand the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty for each of its customers, for each of its business units, and for each of the industries in which it competes." For a professional service firm, this applies to each of its areas of service, and for the legal marketplace and client industries in which it competes.
To Jones and Sasser's point, the vice president of a major oil company said in a Strategic Client Interview: "I have a lot of respect for the firm that they're doing this. It's easy to have someone like you glean this kind of information, but it's difficult to listen to it, and it's more difficult to put your ego aside and do something about it. It means that the firm is smart enough to say we want to stay in business for the next 30 years."
In any economic climate, keeping clients satisfied is crucial to your firm. As Hoffman advocates, you need to know how to completely satisfy your clients now more than ever in this tough economic climate. Strategic Client Interviews will help you excel at listening to your clients so that they will remain your clients.
For more information on Strategic Client Interviews, contact Joyce K. Smiley at 561-775-9755, or jsmiley@jkscompany.com. On the web at jkscompany.com.
Verbatim: What Clients Say is published electronically by JKS & Company LLC/Strategic Client Interviews. Copyright 2010 JKS & Company LLC. All rights reserved.
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email: jsmiley@jkscompany.com
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