Article · Professional Services

Client listening is a hiring decision

Every firm says it listens to clients. The ones that act on what they hear have put someone senior in charge of it.

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A boardroom overlooking the city

Client feedback programmes fail politely. Interviews happen, a report circulates, everyone agrees it is interesting, and nothing changes. The missing ingredient is rarely the methodology. It is the seniority of the person who owns it.

Why junior ownership fails

A coordinator can run the process, but they cannot sit across a managing partner and say the firm’s biggest client feels taken for granted. The value of listening is in the uncomfortable conversation that follows, and that conversation needs someone with standing.

What the role looks like

The strongest client programmes I have recruited for sit with a senior client relationship or BD leader who interviews the firm’s most valuable clients personally, turns what they hear into account plans, and holds partners to them. The role pays for itself the first time it keeps a key client that was quietly leaving.

If nobody senior owns what clients say, the firm has a survey, not a listening programme.

If you are weighing up whether that person exists in your team, or needs to be found, that is a conversation I have most weeks: charles@daltonhandley.com.

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