By Scott Hyde, Service Delivery Manager
Finding a consultant who brings the right skills and expertise to client engagements is so important for a successful outcome. What is equally important, in order to exceed client expectations, are several soft skills that can make a significant positive impact when working with clients. Soft skills are abilities that relate to how you work and interact with other people, such as communication, teamwork, and other interpersonal skills. In my 20+ years of experience in managing client engagements, I’ve seen a clear path to success for consultants with certain attributes or soft skills that make them stand above the others. While some of this might seem obvious, the key differentiator is being consistent and curious.
KEEP YOUR CLIENT INFORMED: You might be in a situation where your client has assigned you to work with other team members, and you are not working directly with your actual client. It’s vital that you keep your client fully informed of the status of your tasks, deliverables, and accomplishments. Don’t assume or rely on the other team members you are working with to do this communication for you. Best Practice: Proactively discuss with your client their communication preference to get updates and status reports. My guidance is to suggest a periodic written status email (weekly or bi-weekly) listing current assigned tasks; due dates; status; issues and any help needed. Many clients appreciate a visual or graphic depiction of status in the form of a time line and/or dashboard. Additionally, strive to have a periodic 1:1 meeting with your main client to review status at least monthly.
PROACTIVELY ADD VALUE: In my many years of managing client engagements, some of our most satisfied clients often cite how much a consultant adds value and appreciates when they proactively look for opportunities to create value – beyond their normal assigned responsibilities. Consultants who embrace this practice typically garner high marks by clients. Best Practice: Always look for ways to make your client’s processes more efficient, productive, and cost-effective. You have an advantage with a fresh perspective! Put yourself in your clients’ shoes and think of how things might be done better, then propose those ideas to your client for validation and action.
LEARN ABOUT YOUR CLIENT’S BUSINESS: A key to rendering ideas for ways to add value to your client is to become a student of their business. Best Practice: Take a step back from your own responsibilities and learn what the client’s business unit is all about: client organization structure; key players and their responsibilities; goals and mission; key challenges; performance metrics/results. It’s also helpful to understand where the client organization is employing other contract consultants, and what they are doing. This is helpful for our team to understand where our competitors are and where we might pursue additional opportunities.
At Troy Consulting, we aim to set the ‘gold standard’ for service delivery excellence and coach our team of experts to always embrace this mindset. You can read more about our service culture here.
