In our work in talking to clients of professional services firms, we mainly identify opportunities, risks, and key actions that the firm can take to strengthen or extend the relationship.
Occasionally we don’t though. A few weeks ago I spoke to a client of a firm who gave really powerful, valuable feedback about his experience of a firm. He also said, however that he had progressively reduced his use of the firm in 2 out of the 3 specialisms he needed.
The sobering thing is that, had the firm known about his reasons behind this earlier, they could have easily done something about it. As he said “they should have asked me 5 years ago…but now it is too late”.
Its a simple example perhaps but just reminded me very clearly of the need to ensure you have recent feedback from (at least) your most financially significant clients.