我最近有机会提供网络研讨会，客户经验在推动收入中的作用, and asked several questions of attendees. One query was about how much of their work came from existing clients, and to no one’s surprise, the most commonly-cited range was 80-89% (52% of respondents), followed closely by 70-79% (28% of attendees). This aligned with two common statistics that I've repeatedly seen during my three decades working in the AEC market space:
- 公司的收入中有80％来自现有客户（又称重复业务）
- 公司的20％的客户占收入的80％
With regard to the latter statistics, the recent2021 Deltek Clarity报告found that, on average, a firm’s Top 3 clients account for 37% of annual revenue. (Last year the same report found a figure of 42%.)
However, it was another question of webinar attendees that left me somewhat shocked:
- 11％的参与者表示，他们的公司目前已制定正式的客户体验计划
2019年，我领导了Society for Marketing Professional Services（SMP）导致报告Marketing 2022: A Survey Exploring Current and Future A/E/C Marketing Practices. That research found that only 18% of firms had formal Client Experience plans in place, but by the end of 2022, 54% of companies expected to have this type of plan in place.
有趣的是，这似乎不会发生。调查受访者也许是一厢情愿的想法。也许是由于Covid-19造成了许多营销策略。最有可能是两者的结合。
这项非正式的网络研讨会似乎表明，采用强大的客户体验策略来提高收入仍然不会在AEC行业中获得广泛的接受。此外，由于SMPS研究主要集中在SMPS成员的公司周围，因此开发客户体验计划的动力很可能是市场驱动的。这当然不是负面的，但确实表明了非营销驱动的公司进一步落后于竞争对手的风险。
企业对消费者（B2C）行业完全理解并接受客户体验的重要性。当我键入此博客时，我坐在西南航班上，与客户见面。（是的！具有幽默感，与比赛相比，较低的成本航班（通常不是总是）和一个简单的应用程序，使旅行无缝的体验 - 从购买机票和租车到使用手机的简单应用用于登机。哦，整个“两个袋子免费”的东西。（las，这次航班上没有Wi-Fi ...所以我将体验降低了！）
在2020年Travel+Leisure杂志报告了航空质量评级研究新利luck，发现西南航空经历了每10万名乘客的客户投诉率为2.64，这是所有航空公司中最低的。表现最差的航空公司的投诉率高出超过18倍。此外，2020 J.D. Power survey长途航班和短途航班的客户满意度中，西南航空公司排名最高。他们显然可以正确地获得客户体验。
Far too often AEC firm leaders believe that Client Experience lies in the purview of their marketing departments. Certainly, marketing plays a crucial role in Client Experience. As does business development. And project delivery. And negotiation. And billing. And every single interaction your firm has with a “client” - including the interactions before an organization becomes a client, and the ongoing communications with them after project completion.
映射客户之旅
这被称为client journey，任何客户体验策略的高效组成部分是绘制客户与公司一起进行的旅程。他们如何与您互动？他们采取什么行动？是什么驱动这些行动？可能影响他们所说和做的事情的基本情感驱动力是什么？在此过程中的每个步骤中，他们碰巧遇到什么疼痛点？最后，您的公司如何为每次交互增加价值？毕竟，如果您没有添加值，则交互的目的是什么？值得客户的时间和关注吗？
To understand Client Experience, you really need to understand the journey first. And one size does not fit all when it comes to a client’s journey with your firm. Every client has a slightly different journey, and the differences between market sectors / verticals may be significant.
Journey mapping is just one element of an effective Client Experience strategy. More holistically, the “experience” is the total of each and every interaction – in-person, telephone, email, social media, website, networking events, etc. For instance:
- 如果客户要求提供一条信息，并且您不满足他们对及时性的期望，那么您会创造出负面的经历。
- 如果该领域的机械承包商正在等待结构工程师的RFI关于屋顶的负载能力，而结构工程师的响应并不及时，则具有负面的经验。
- If your project manager is having a bad day or is overly-stressed or simply didn’t get enough sleep, this could “leak,” which means that he or she may be curt with the client, or something worse, creating a negative experience.
Research from PWCfound that in the United States, across all industries, 17% of customers will leave after a single negative experience, while 59% will leave after a few negative experiences. (Globally, 1 in 3 customers will leave after a single bad experience.) Why should we care about this? Buying behaviors between products, services, and professional services are increasingly becoming aligned.
此外，竞争环境并没有放松。并购活动将大型公司带到您的城镇或街道上。不幸的员工离开并带着客户。企业家专业人士成立了新的公司，具有较低的开销和新想法（也许还有您的一些客户）。在客户的忠诚度正在发生变化的同时 - 也许您的主要联系人正在退休，或者采购部门现在需要三个“投标”，经过多年的递交您的工作。
In other words, it ain’t getting any easier to keep clients coming back again and again.
新的业务发展对于企业增长至关重要。但是，AEC公司经常将所有精力集中在降落新业务上，而没有足够的资源来将现有客户变成快乐，狂热的粉丝。
Client Experience Strategy
如果您想维持自己的市场份额，更少的增长，那么您必须将时间和资源用于每次互动来创造积极的客户体验。为此，围绕客户体验的许多要素制定战略，其中一些包括：
- 进行客户研究（定性和定量）
- Creating client journey and empathy maps
- Building strategy around specialized focus areas
- Developing ideal client profiles
- Understanding your clients’ clients by gaining advanced industry knowledge
- 获得每个客户的深入了解
- Implementing Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
- Revisiting your project management practices
- 开发客户入职计划
- Improving communications among team members and with your clients
- Integrating your technologies with the technologies your clients prefer
- 增加员工的参与度
- Innovating and diversifying to respond to client and marketplace needs
- Training staff how to be better communicators, creative thinkers, and emotionally-intelligent professionals
- Aligning your marketing and brand with the “real you” — clients expect the marketing hype to be true: is it?
As you can see, Client Experience strategy goes far beyond marketing and really permeates everything your firm does. As you look over this list, can you truly say that you are regularly addressing and improving these items? Or do you merely pay them lip service or, even worse, totally ignore some of these areas?
The SMPS research previously referenced found that Client Experience will soon be the single most important sales and marketing strategy among AEC firms, more important than networking, thought leadership, branding, and personal selling. You can be sure that your competitors are looking at ways to improve their Client Experience strategies, which in turn will make them a more attractive option when they come for your clients. Make no mistake: they are coming. Will you be prepared?
How are you addressing Client Experience strategy at your firm? What other elements to you consider part of Client Experience?给我笔记- I'd love to hear about it!
