In today’s competitive marketplace, it is essential for professional advisers and their firms to remain aligned with clients’ changing needs and expectations. A well‑designed client feedback programme is a powerful tool that can be scaled up to support this objective.
This article outlines ten practical tips to help embed success into your scaled-up client feedback programme and highlights factors which, if ignored, can make it harder to realise its full value.
1. Keep clients at the centre of what you do
Keeping clients at the centre of everything your firm does makes good business sense. By understanding client opinions and needs, firms are better positioned to create client‑perceived value, win more work, and mitigate risk.
2. Secure senior buy‑in to scale-up and link outputs to the business plan
Your client feedback programme should be clearly positioned as part of the firm’s business plan, delivering benefits for clients, fee earners, and the firm as a whole. Link feedback questions directly to business objectives. When insight aligns with strategic priorities, it becomes more actionable and valuable. If outputs cannot be linked to business goals, the issue is usually either who is being interviewed or how questions are framed, both of which can be addressed.
3. Choose the right scale-up team
Successful programmes are led by a small, diverse team who champion the initiative across the firm. Typical roles include an executive sponsor, project manager, data specialist, and administrative support, with key adovates in each office/practice group. These roles rarely require full‑time commitment and will evolve as the programme matures. The project manager is particularly important, often starting as the scale-up process manager and developing into a strong advocate for the programme’s success.
4. Demonstrate return on investment
Return on investment should be visible and meaningful. ROI typically falls into two categories, soft and hard.
- Soft ROI relates to process and engagement, such as programme launch, increased response rates, improved engagement with hard‑to‑reach clients, training outcomes, and internal or external communications. While these benefits may not always be easily monetised, they can have a wide cultural and reputational impact.
- Hard ROI links directly to commercial outcomes, such as retaining at‑risk clients, winning new mandates, increasing revenue, resolving issues, and identifying cross‑sell opportunities. These benefits can be quantified and reported.
5. Set and report key performance indicators
KPIs should reflect the maturity of the programme and the firm’s business objectives, and are often closely aligned to ROI. Early‑stage programmes may focus on participation rates or satisfaction measures, while more advanced programmes may combine satisfaction, recommendation metrics, and service delivery indicators. Consistent internal benchmarking helps track performance, identify trends, and define what success looks like.
6. Offer flexible interview options
Offering different interview formats improves participation and acceptance. Interview methods should reflect client importance, complexity, and geography. In practice, this may involve in‑person or virtual interviews for key clients, telephone interviews for dispersed clients, and online web-surveys for more transactional relationships.
7. Welcome both positive and negative feedback
Most feedback in professional services is positive, but relying only on favourable responses creates risk. Indifferent or negative feedback provides vital insight and opportunities for improvement. Negative feedback should be viewed as a chance to learn, strengthen service delivery, and reduce future risk. When issues are addressed effectively, they can often be turned into success stories.
8. Reward and recognise success
Recognising success reinforces the value of the programme, this is a key role of a managing partner or CEO. Fee earners benefit from acknowledgement for good service, recommendations, and commercial outcomes. Structured recognition, and constructive responses when issues arise, help embed learning across the firm. Everyone has a role in meeting client expectations.
9. Communicate clearly and consistently
Communication is critical, both externally and internally. Clients should hear a clear message of thanks, listening, and action. Internally, communication should share insight themes, ROI, and KPIs, supported by evidence and clear analysis. Gap analysis between client expectations and service delivery is often an effective way to communicate findings.
10. Take action
Client feedback only creates value when it leads to action; more feedback invariably means more action. Insight should be treated as a catalyst for improvement, whether changes are large or small. The key principle is accountability. Someone, somewhere, must own the action arising from feedback to ensure learning is translated into better client outcomes.