Does your client trust you?
Key questions management consultants should ask to build successful client relationships
Undertaking a project involving management consultants requires an organisation to invest in money and time. An important factor in ensuring consultants provide worthwhile value is building a trusting relationship between a client and their consultants. Determining whether or not your client trusts you can be a subjective judgement for consultants to make.
The Centre of Management Consulting Excellence (CMCE) recently conducted research that provides important insights into how management consultants can build a trust-based relationship with their clients. Based on this work, it has produced a series of questions that consultants can ask themselves to develop a trusting relationship with their clients, and to assess how well they are doing.
The research examined how trust is built, for example during the sales process and in the early days of a consulting engagement, and how it is maintained and developed as an engagement progresses.
Determining expertise and competence is the first step in building trust. Do you understand what skills and experience are important to the client? Does the consulting team really have the skills and experience that you and the client needed?
From there, consultants can establish transparency and open communication. Question how often you and the client communicate and whether the discussions are honest, accurate, and clear.
Consultants must manage client expectations by asking whether realistic expectations have been set and if regular discussions are needed to determine whether these have changed.
Developing a personal rapport and emotional connection means making sure you understand the client’s management style and questioning how often you listen to the client compared to how often they listen to you.
As a consulting engagement progresses, delivering consistent results becomes increasingly important. Are there key activities and outputs that can be completed before the end of the engagement? How can the management consultants obtain feedback on the successful completion of these activities and outputs from the client?
Consultants must also ask whether they are acting in the best interests of the client or their own organisation. Are there any potential conflicts of interest and is the client aware of these?
They must show flexibility, understanding whether changes to the client’s needs always result in an increase or timescales and if they provide the client with options on how any changes in needs can be met.
Proactive communication and managing uncertainty are the final necessary measures. How well are you monitoring risks and issues? Are you making the client aware of these when they are identified and do you provide workable solutions?
Jim Foster is the director of The Centre of Management Consulting Excellence (CMCE).
