5 Responses

1. sorry, but….
   Hi Nigel
   can you define what the difference is between client relationship and customer service in your thought process?
   Rus

2. Client relations
   HI Rus
   I guess I should have explained more. In this instance the client and customer are two seperate entities. The company I work for provides services for businesses on their premises (e.g facilities, catering). Our client is the business owner. The customers would be for example, the people who work for that business and use the catering we provide. In this instance I need to provide training around the relationship with our client, the business we are providing the service for. Customer facing/service training is somethng seperate.

   Nigel

3. Client Management Training Materials
   Hi Nigel

   We provide training materials for client management which considering what you described will fit your purpose very well. Feel free to explore the features and I’ll be happy to explain more if you had any questions.

   All the best.

4. difficult to seperate the realtionship across hierarchical lines
   Hi Nigel
   It is difficult (and potentially dangerous)to divide the relationship….the Client may well also be a customer and this can lead to issues if there isn’t a seamless approach.
   (I’m not being awkward but the “lower level people” who get customer service training may well be the most important people in the client relationship as well, especially on a day to day basis)
   Have a look at http://www.peoplealchemy.com and go to Client Account Management; you should find some useful stuff there (you may need to register for a trial period but it is worth it!
   Rus
   http://www.coach-and-courses.com

5. David Freemantle
   Hi Nigel
   I find that David Freemantle’s work very helpful for this type of preparation “What your customers like about you” is the title of the book. He talks about the importance of integrity, connection and creativity and I have used this structure to explore what we could improve on. The focus of David’s book is all about building long term relationships with customers and I used it with lawyers as part of a client relationship project.
   I suggest starting with what the relationships are like already, when the supervisors are able to do their best what is it like. I would also do some work looking at things from the client’s perspective by doing a “in their shoes” type of exercise.
   There are lots of other ideas and if you give an outline of your desired outcomes this would help ensure a fit.