Eric Gilbertsen is Chief Client Officer at REQ, a digital agency specializing in Advocacy, Reputation, and Brand Marketing.
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Customer experience is the current obsession for product marketers. Every touchpoint—from the physical or digital storefront to the packaging and ongoing emails—is finely crafted to delight the customer, generate future sales and encourage referrals.
For service businesses, like agencies, the value should be real, but the experience is less tangible. Success and client retention come down to people working together—advising, debating and trusting each other. The client pays the agency, and thus the agency must guide the relationship.
As any moderator, advisor or counselor can attest, empathy is a critical instinct. As I approach 25 years in the business, working alongside hundreds of agency professionals, I've identified four core instincts that define successful, empathetic client service professionals. Some seem born with them, but you can learn them over time.
1. They sense the smallest frustrations.
In the agency business, I find that client frustration is typically due to:
• Results: Targets are being missed and results are lower than expectations, putting pressure on your client point-of-contact, which cascades to the agency.
• Information: The presentation of data or information is too complicated, incomplete, inaccurate or not actionable.
• Communication: The tone, tenor and timeliness of communication are breaking down and affecting the client's mood about the agency relationship.
• Inefficiency: Time is being wasted or tasks are too hard to complete.
While many may have an inkling of what's wrong, the instinctual client service person acts on their senses. They are adept at coaxing the client to share the frustration, solve it together and revisit it periodically to ensure that it doesn't return.
2. They know when to pick up the phone.
Relationships are usually not built over email—and they often deteriorate there. Although email is efficient when you're working with teams in different places or on different schedules, clarity is rarely achieved in email. Subtleties, sarcasm and emotion are often lost, although emojis can help. And time is usually wasted.
Situations that call for a call include:
• When it's too complicated to explain in a few sentences.
• When you sense frustration.
• When the email thread gets too long.
• When an apology is warranted.
• When their feedback matters to you.
• When it's been a while since the last conversation.
The instinctual client service person knows when to make a phone call, and does so with confidence.
3. They know when to share and when to listen.
It's harder for clients to fire people they like. While active listening and sharing personal details can be a catalyst for connection, oversharing can drive people away.
The instinctual client service person is adept at connecting and finding common ground with a range of personality types. They ask smart, probing questions that deepen the conversation and volley with insights of their own.
One approach that works is the CARDS feedback methodology, which places questions or comments into five groups:
• Clarifying.
• Appreciating.
• Relating.
• Deepening.
• Suggestions.
These are the conversations that uncover risks to retention and opportunities to upsell—the bottom line for advancement in a client service career.
4. They know how to anticipate, not just respond.
Being responsive is fundamental to client service. It isn't hard to learn this boilerplate response: "I got your message. Let me get back to you by tomorrow with an answer."
The instinctual client service person goes a step further and anticipates what their client will need, how they will be feeling and what their first work-related thought of the day will be tomorrow. They get out ahead and leave their clients wondering whether they can read minds.
As with many things, talent never hurts, but practice makes perfect. To become an instinctual client service person, pause regularly—even for a millisecond—to look inward and ask whether you've activated and sharpened these four instincts. If so, satisfaction, retention and growth are likely to follow.
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