Knowledge

Don't Import Your Clients' Problems

I recently met with an old friend of mine who runs his own consulting practice. We exchanged about our experiences, and he gave me this advice: don't import your clients' problems.

As a financial consultant, he works with a lot of companies in the midst of financial troubles, including cash flow shortages. Before starting an assignment, he now demands a substantial down payment. He didn' always do that, and the result was late payment by clients, or no payment at all, putting his own financial situation at risk. He was indeed importing his clients' problems. He now holds himself to a very strict line: "My clients' problem may not become my problems."

It reminds me of a client of ours who was not subject to VAT, and therefore could not deduct the VAT we were legally forced to add to our bills. He wanted us to reduce our hourly rate accordingly. Basically, he wanted us to pay VAT for him.

That pattern happens in a lot of areas, not only in financial matters: "urgent requests" from clients are not always the genuine result from unexpected circumstances, but simply from the lack of organisation and planning on the client's side. I was once talking about a time management course in a law firm. A partner told me abruptly: "Time management is dead." He felt he had no control over his own time. All he was doing was trying to respond to urgent calls from clients. Further down that road, many professionals have a messed up personal life because responding as soon as possible to any clients' requests has become a religion they do not question and to which they are entirely submitted.

To what extent should we accomodate the client's "needs"? At what point do we stop being flexible and responsive and do we begin importing our cients' problems? When conventional wisdom in professional services is all about client-centeredness and adjusting to client's needs and expectations, it is healthy, I believe, at some point to draw the line, to set boundaries, and to think back about the real meaning of client care. Being contaminated by the "client's diseases" has nothing to do with effective client service. However, drawing the line, saying "no", is not an easy call, for reasons good and bad. The good reason: professionals want to please the client, to deliver not only expert advice but also excellent service, and to meet or event exceed clients' expectations. The bad reason: behind the cult of client service and the reluctance to say no, there is a fear: "If I set boundaries, if I refuse to import the client's problem, I could lose the client..."

Personal growth for professionals requires at some point to come to overcome the fear of losing clients, i.e. to actually lose clients (for good reasons) and feel OK about it. Professionals should indeed build enough self-esteem and confidence to accept losing clients from time to time. Client loyalty that is based on the professional importing the client's problem is not client loyalty. It's what addiction experts call co-dependence. It is something to be cured. 

Antoine Henry de Frahan | 5 September 2006 |