What We're Reading Now
It’s All about Relationships and Managing Expectations
29 May 2012
Allison read The Art of Client Service because a local advertising, marketing and public relations client wanted to use the book as part of a team workshop. We really like it when people give us reading assignments (our blog is called What We’re Reading Now after all) and this time was no exception. Robert Solomon’s book is a quick and easy read geared primarily to his industry, but with useful messages for professionals providing service in all walks of life.
Tags: allison read, communication, culture, teams
When people visit the Allison Partners office we always encourage them to spend some time staring at our bookshelf that’s labeled by category (you’ll find books shelved under Change Management, Creativity, Balance, Culture, Diversity, Communication, and more).
We find a little quiet gazing helps us to reference the right book for the situation at hand or to figure out what we want to read next. I’m glad my client asked me to add The Art of Client Service to our shelves because it provides such good examples of communication best practices. Solomon devotes a few pages to each of the 54 tricks of the trade he learned during 20 years of account management at some of the most prestigious advertising and marketing agencies in the world serving clients like American Express, AT&T, Citibank, Levi-Strauss, MasterCard, Seagram, Sothebys, and UPS. The chapters are organized into three main parts including The Work, Relationships, and Style and Substance. My client and I decided to focus the team’s workshop on eight of Solomon’s lessons:
- Define success (4)
- Always manage client expectations (5)
- Client presentations are as important as new business presentations (20)
- Listening is more important than talking (28)
- Great work wins business; a great relationship keeps it (38)
- We are smarter together than we are alone (39)
- No surprises about money or time (45)
- Deal with trouble head-on (46)
The lessons in these chapters provide tangible examples of why setting expectations, being an active listener, and giving and receiving positive and negative feedback effectively are so important to relationship building. These are the main topics we cover in our Effective Communication courses so it’s always nice to have more real life examples of the principles at work. I enjoyed teaching my client’s team how to follow some of Solomon’s advice and look forward to hearing how the tools have worked for them. We paid special attention to the Allison Partners’ belief that much of the conflict we experience in the world—and the disappointment we sometimes feel in ourselves and others—can be avoided if we set clear expectations from the outset and find ways to share and solicit feedback when things go awry.
What expectations do you need to establish or re-clarify with people in your life so that you can better serve them and they can better serve you? Being in service to one another is a great way to think about all of your relationships so get out there and practice the art of client service every day. I think you’ll like the results.
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