Clients

New ideas for a new service

The business consultancy was adding a new service line, one that had the opportunity to bring in work for the rest of the firm. But how to market the new offering and differentiate it, not just from what exists already, but competitors’ offerings, too?

The solution was to use the existing to leverage the new. Rather than an announcement and a lavish party that left little more than a big bill and even bigger hangovers, the launch was considered strategically. First, all the business development tools were created so the partners had everything they needed ahead of time.

Then a launch was planned with a hand-picked guest list of clients (existing and potential) that would show clearly how well positioned the firm was. Instead of just drinks and speeches, a highly informative event was crafted with a panel of influential people as well as the firm’s experts. The event tackled a topic everyone in the industry would like answers on.

After the event the follow-up business development plan kicked in – first with strategic communications that reconnected with those who came to the event and showed those who didn’t what they missed. This was followed by a carefully orchestrated program of strategic meetings with well-informed agendas and quality thought leadership shared via social media that kept people engaged. The new service line was soon feeding work into the existing practice areas.

Unexpected client feedback?

The firm was receiving consistent client feedback that their people were arrogant and difficult to work with. The high quality of their work was the foundation of success, but leadership was worried that this behaviour could result in a bad reputation and loss of work in the future.

The solution was an independent client review program combined with internal workshops to determine revised values that expressed how the firm wanted to be seen in the market. These were made real and consistent in the firm though a comprehensive behaviour change program and strategic internal communications firmwide. The result was that both clients and staff were much happier, positive aspects of the culture were reinforced and reflected in a recruitment uplift. Leadership felt disaster had been averted.

Demystifying client relationships

At a specialist accounting firm, the details of the most valuable client relationships were known only to the individual partners who owned the relationship. There was no shared account plan, no consistent way of tracking relationship health, and feedback - if it was sought at all - came from the same people delivering the investigative work, so early warning signs of an at-risk relationship were easy to miss. Partners could name their best clients, but nobody could say with confidence whether those were the right clients for where the firm wanted to grow next.

The solution was to map the firm's key clients against revenue, relationship depth, strategic fit and growth potential, rather than simply going with whoever partners felt closest to. This produced a client acquisition and segmentation framework and key account plan the whole team could use, so relationship management no longer depended entirely on which partner happened to own the client. Quarterly account health reviews were conducted - alongside an independent client listening and review program, run by someone other than the people delivering the work, so feedback was honest rather than filtered.

The firm had an objective answer to whether its best clients were its right clients, with relationship health tracked consistently across the team rather than living and leaving with individual partners.

From investigating breaches to preventing them

The digital forensics team had built its reputation on being called in after something had already gone wrong - investigating breaches, recovering evidence, and helping clients understand what had happened. Leadership could see growing demand for cyber security services that helped clients avoid an incident in the first place, but the firm was known so specifically for after-the-fact investigation that clients struggled to see it as a fit for proactive work.

The solution was a strategy that treated the firm's forensic reputation as an asset rather than a limitation. Rather than launching a generic security offering, the roadmap positioned the new services as a natural extension of the firm's investigative expertise - the same people who knew exactly how breaches happened were best placed to help prevent them. Priority services were chosen to reflect this angle, and messaging, case studies, and business development were realigned to make the connection obvious to existing clients first.

Existing clients became the fastest route to market, converting investigation relationships into ongoing security engagements, and the firm was soon being briefed before incidents occurred rather than only after.