Interacting with clients: looking to Harvard for an example.

• Author: Cingoranelli, Dominic

CPA firms and their clients usually train employees to apply their core values when interacting with clients and customers. In the following article, the author illustrates the benefits of ensuring that employees understand the core values and how to apply them. He also suggests ways to foster more effective interaction.

How well have you trained employees in your firm's protocol for dealing with customers' or clients' questions or complaints? Do you have a set of core values that guide interaction with customers or clients, and, if so, have you explained to your people how they work in practical application?

These issues are pretty basic, but sometimes we lose sight of the basics and forget to continually reinforce them with our people. When that happens we can have breakdowns in processes. The breakdowns can occur anywhere along the value chain, from business development and sales to delivery of products or services. Most of us have some mechanism to see that customers' or clients' questions are answered, hopefully quickly and appropriately, and to obtain feedback from them.

If your firm does not have such a mechanism, consider taking some time to implement one. If the mechanism is in place, when was the last time you checked it to see that it's working properly? Just having mechanisms is not enough today. You have to train employees and monitor, supervise and coach them to enable them to do the best job that they can to amaze customers or clients. Don't believe that just because your employees have been given a copy of your core values and have been through some customer service training that they really "get" it.

The following e-mail string, starting from earliest to most recent, is a classic example of what happens when someone doesn't "get" it. It resulted from my signing up for a subscription to the Harvard Business Review. Once I received an e-mail confirming the order, with the subject line "Online Access for New HBR Subscribers," I went ahead to check out the electronic version of the journal.

Now, you would think that Harvard, with its status as a think tank for management concepts, would have this nailed. Read on.

Subject: Online Access for New HBR Subscribers Dear Mr. Cingoranelli: Thank you for becoming a HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW subscriber. Your subscriber ID is: XXX YYY ZZZZ Your first print copy of HBR should arrive within 2-3 weeks. Thank you again for your order and enjoy your HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW subscription...