Do you really know who your client is?

In my previous post, Why professional service organizations fail! I noted that the centerpiece of The Professional Services Ecosystem™ is The Client. But the client can be a nebulous concept when it comes to professional services.

Heck, on a rudimentary level, do we have clients or customers in PS? Unless the service is offered to a single individual, the client/customer nearly always involves multiple stakeholders and most often, is worked through a contract with a company. Who is the client/customer? Is it the company? Is it the buyer who signed the agreement? How about the users of the professional service? It is all pretty confusing and causes no end to difficulties in PS engagements because the client/customer is often poorly identified, frequently resulting in client disappointment with the final results.

So which is it, client or customer?

What appears to be the most common delineation between client and customer is that a customer is more of a transactional role. A customer buys a product or service and once the money changes hands and the product or service is received, the relationship is concluded. On the other hand, a client is typically a party to an agreement where a relationship is established between the client and the professional services entity. The client relationship is of a longer-term nature where the PS organization provides ongoing expertise and assistance to the client.

So, for me, customer transactions are:

• Purchase groceries.

• Buy a haircut.

• Buy duct cleaning services.

• Purchase a laptop computer.

• Do your taxes on TurboTax.

Professional services organizations primarily work with clients...

Client transactions are:

• Engage with a lawyer to represent you in a claim.

• Go to a doctor for ongoing treatment of hypertension.

• IT consulting services to assist with a custom system build.

• Consulting and implementation services associated with the deployment of an enterprise SaaS solution.

PS organizations primarily work with clients, although they may occasionally have customers and customer transactions depending upon the types of products and services they offer. Regarding The Professional Services Ecosystem ™ (PSE), we’ll use the term "The Client" to represent the receiver of our services.

OK, so whoever signed the contract is the client!

If a contract is involved, which there almost always is or should be, the legal entity defined in that agreement may be an individual or an entity like a company. The legal language may even define the individual or company as “The Client”. If the client is an individual, then it is pretty clear to whom services must be delivered and who has the right to say the terms of the agreement were met.

If the contract is with a company or another entity that is made up of multiple individuals who may be using the contracted service, then it gets just a bit more complex. OK, a lot more complex. While the contract is with the company, it is certain key people involved in the delivery and use of the service that will ultimately determine whether the terms of the contract have been met.

So, it appears if the contractual client is a company, then "the company" is not the client in a professional service engagement.

To add to that complexity, those certain key people may not have even been privy to the sales cycle and the decisioning process. They may have not even seen the contract or understand it and the intent of both parties in signing it. So, it appears if the contractual client is a company, then "the company" is not the client in a professional service engagement.

So who is the client?

This is likely the most important point in the successful completion of the engagement and you’d be amazed at how many times the PS team truly does not understand who the client is. The client is anyone who is involved in the implementation and ongoing use of the services provided by the PS organization. WAIT, DON’T PANIC! I know the first thought is, "I can’t satisfy that many people", and honestly you shouldn’t and don’t have to. However, understanding who these people are, their motivations, what is in it for them, and the impact the solution will have on them, is critical to the success of the engagement. This broader context is what I mean when I say, "The Client is central to everything you do in the PSE."

The client is anyone who is involved in the implementation and ongoing use of the services provided by the PS organization.

It is important to identify the key people, across all impacted roles, and how they will help set up and use the solution. The identification of the applicable client personas should be one of the first steps in kicking off an engagement. This puts a face to the client. It starts to build a relationship and it humanizes the delivery of the solution in a way that will help drive a better experience for the client and provide more value. Building out the typical client personas associated with your business and its offerings is a great way to develop solution delivery practices for the key clients you work with on every engagement.

What are client personas?

A persona is a generic role or character a person takes on as part of an engagement. For example, I might take on the persona of the executive sponsor on an engagement. As an executive sponsor, I have specific responsibilities, motivations, concerns, and actions I take during the project. Many PS organizations have well-defined personas for the team members they provide for a project. Unfortunately, most PS organizations stop there.

Good PS organizations define the personas that their clients will take on during the engagement. However, great PS organizations take them much further than just a title and a brief description. Developing personas that articulate the motivations, concerns, and value proposition for each impacted client role allows the PS team to deliver the best, appropriate solution to each client.

Good PS organizations define the personas that their clients will take on during the engagement. However, great PS organizations take them much further...

Additionally, it helps the team understand the downstream importance of their work, which is often not considered when the team is so focused on day-to-day activities and deliverables. Depending upon the professional services your company offers, you may even tie these personas to specific use cases to provide a key component of your solution.

Here is an example persona from the SaaS HCM world, which is quite common but often ignored.

Name – Sally Single Mother

Persona – Hourly worker for the company. Has two children and generally lives paycheck to paycheck. She hopes to move into management someday so she can begin to save for the kid’s college fund.

Motivation – Needs to trust that her paycheck will be accurate and in her bank account, on time, every week.

Concerns – Last time the business put a new payroll system in it took two pay periods to get Sally’s paycheck correct. Additionally, the first one was late, so it was funded Monday, instead of Friday. She bounced two checks because of this and had to pay bank fees. Not to mention the embarrassment it caused.

What happens if this occurs? – Sally may not be able to buy groceries for her family on Friday as planned. Additionally, she may be unable to pay her rent on time and will incur penalties of 3% for being late.

How to Address – Ensure that the payroll setup is correct and validated for each employee. Ensure employees understand their role in confirming the accuracy of their data. Have employees validate the new setup of bank information. Payroll Consultant matches current system payroll registers to new system registers in the practice run. Etc.

This may seem like a bit of overkill, but I assure you it is not. This level of consideration puts a face to your business practices and clarifies the value proposition for your services. As you evolve you'll find the personas are pretty consistent for the solutions your business offers. You can also see where it ties nicely to use cases.

This level of consideration puts a face to your business practices and clarifies the value proposition for your services.

Now, most things aren’t life and death, but you’d be amazed at the downstream impact of your services and solution if you fully play them out. Understanding that Sally's kids will be eating cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for two days because you didn't set up her payroll properly is crucial to delivering great solutions. Identifying the personas of all the clients in an engagement and then delivering to them is the key. We’ll talk more about personas and share some tools for capturing personas in a future blog.

Well does this mean I have to do whatever the client asks? After all, the client is always right, right?

Now you might think that by making the client the center of the PSE and of everything we do, that means the client is always right. Nothing is further from the truth. As PS solution providers we frequently must protect clients from themselves. The client purchased your services because they believe your solution matches their needs. Additionally, they likely could not have done this project by themselves, otherwise, they wouldn’t have hired you in the first place.

With that said, you are the expert. The client may try to drive the project in a specific way or "require" certain activities to be performed that do not align with your standard processes. If these are not outlined in the contract there is no obligation to deliver your services in that manner.

The client is not always right. They are not the expert in delivering your services, you are.

The key is to understand whether the client is asking for these items because there are gaps in your delivery or because of other reasons. It is not uncommon for a client to impose process requirements when they’ve had issues with past service providers. If you are confident in your delivery processes, then there is no reason to modify your process for the client. The client is not always right. They are not the expert in delivering your services, you are. Remember that so that you can effectively deliver your services without taking on substantially more overhead and putting your project at risk. We’ll dig deep into client expectation setting and accountability in future blogs.

For some additional resources on holding clients accountable, and on PS principles in general, check out the PS Principles site of my friend, Shane Anastasi.

So...

The client is anyone who participates in the project or uses the resultant solution. It is important to understand all the key client personas, their motivations, and how to ensure a positive experience for them. You will, in turn, align your delivery practices to meet the needs of these personas. This gives you a true understanding of your client and how to best deliver your solutions to them.

It is important to understand all the key client personas, their motivations, and how to ensure a positive experience for them.

This doesn’t mean that the client can or should drive how you deliver your services. The client is not always right. Remember you are the expert in the delivery of your solution. Straying from your proven processes only puts the project at risk and almost certainly will result in a less than satisfying experience for the client.

---

Kevin Thompson

For over 30 years I’ve worked with and in professional service organizations in the IT services and SaaS spaces. In that time, and with a lot of help from some tremendous people, we’ve developed a repeatable process whereby these organizations have enjoyed tremendous success delivering high-quality solutions to our clients. The Professional Services Ecosystem™ is a key construct of that success.