How to Cultivate Client Evangelists
In an earlier post, I discussed the concept of Client Experience Management. As a business writer for service professionals, I’m also very interested in the related concept of Client Evangelism.
Client evangelists are people who are so pleased with, and passionate about, services they receive that they voluntarily shout the provider’s praises until the rafters ring. I first learned about this kind of consumer zeal through Ben McConnell’s and Jackie Huba’s terrific book, Creating Customer Evangelists, and now continue my education at their Church of the Customer Blog.
Always on the hunt for practical input on this front, I was pleased to run across a McConnell-Huba article titled Customer Evangelists: Spreading the Word. In it, the authors list some telltale signs of client evangelism, including:
- Clients passionately recommend you to others
- Clients give you unsolicited praise and feedback
- Clients forgive your occasional services lapses, but tell you about them
McConnell and Huba also identify avenues for fostering client evangelists, such as:
- Planning a social media strategy that incorporates blogs, e-mails and podcasts
- Soliciting client feedback
- Creating an open, two-way line of communication
Providing another take on this topic is an article called Capturing the Voice of the Client culled from the Originate! Business Development Newsletter (the article is part of a free preview issue of a newsletter that's available by paid subscription). Documenting an initiative undertaken by the law firm Patton Boggs, the piece highlights how the firm has built a strong service culture around creating opportunities to listen to, and hear, its clients.
One way the firm accomplishes this goal is by publishing a biannual magazine. The publication gives its “key clients” a chance to “talk about issues relating to their businesses.” Likewise, it offers the firm an invaluable opportunity to showcase its “intimate knowledge of the client’s business, organization, culture, industry and financial metrics.”
