Will your clients elect you as their go-to professional resource?

Clients have a voice and a choice regarding whom they do business with, initially and on an ongoing basis. Obviously, the goal is for clients to initially elect you as their go-to professional resource to serve their needs. However, will they subsequently re-elect you to serve them in the post-pandemic business ecosystem?

First, the pandemic created opportunities for suppliers and consultants like you to step up and serve clients in non-traditional ways. As a result, certain clients elected to do business with new suppliers who were nimble and responsive in meeting their needs.

Next, evaluate your relationships with these newer clients as we enter the post-pandemic hybrid business ecosystem. Are the nimble and responsive qualities which initially won you new business enough to sustain that business, moving forward? Or will your clients move on without you?

Then, evaluate whether your clients are making choices differently now. Are their vendor selection criteria more discerning when evaluating whether to re-elect you as their go-to professional resource?

Consider whether their initial pandemic buying decisions were panic- and stress-based due to disrupted supply chains. Perhaps you were the only option immediately available to them. That was then. This is now.

Realistically, throughout the pandemic, those clients learned how to negotiate the “new normal” of potentially permanently disrupted supply chains. As a result, the qualities that made you their pandemic go-to professional resource are now being re-evaluated. You are being compared to other suppliers and consultants whom your clients have identified. Plus, these alternative suppliers and consultants may deliver higher levels of overall operational competency and client service delivery than you ever did.

As a result, the criteria which created a sense of pandemic urgency is now redefined based on the new, disrupted normal. Are you expecting clients to continue tolerating mediocre or substandard quality and performance discrepancies?

If you assume pandemic clients will remain loyal in the post-pandemic business ecosystem, consider they may already have moved on: without your realizing it. Your clients took the time to discover new, go-to professional resources who are better able to serve them, moving forward. What are your next steps?

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Babette Ten Haken’s One Millimeter Mindset™ programs catalyze people who solve problems differently to collaborate more successfully across business, human resources, and operations value silos. Otherwise, client retention, strategic business and human capital value are negatively impacted. Why not become more professionally visible, cross-functionally relevant, and strategically valuable as you create and implement innovative and robust business outcomes together? Babette is a business-oriented STEM professional, qualitative Voice of the Customer facilitator, PMI-certified Wicked Problem Solver, Duke Corporate Education licensed Strategic Agility practitioner, and Six Sigma Green Belt (Quality). Babette is a member of the ASQ, SHRM, PMI, the National Speakers Association (NSA). Her playbook of cross-functional collaboration, Do YOU Mean Business? is available in soft cover and digital formats on Amazon.com. Contact Babette here. Image source: Adobe Stock.