I recently had the opportunity to deliver a webinar,The Role of Client Experience in Driving Revenue，问几个与会者的问题。One query was about how much of their work came from existing clients, and to no one’s surprise, the most commonly-cited range was 80-89% (52% of respondents), followed closely by 70-79% (28% of attendees). This aligned with two common statistics that I've repeatedly seen during my three decades working in the AEC market space:

• 80% of a firm’s revenues comes from existing clients (aka, repeat business)
• 20% of a firm’s clients represent 80% of their revenues

With regard to the latter statistics, the recent2021 Deltek Clarity Report发现，平均而言，公司的前三名客户占年收入的37％。（去年，同一份报告的数字为42％。）

However, it was another question of webinar attendees that left me somewhat shocked:

• 11% of participants stated that their firms currently have a formal Client Experience plan in place

In 2019, I led research for the营销专业服务协会(SMPS) that resulted in the report营销2022：一项调查探索当前和未来的A/E/C营销实践。That research found that only 18% of firms had formal Client Experience plans in place, but by the end of 2022, 54% of companies expected to have this type of plan in place.

Anecdotally, it didn’t appear that this was going to happen. Perhaps it was wishful thinking by survey respondents. Maybe it was due to COVID-19, which scuttled many marketing strategies. Most likely, it was a combination of both.

This informal webinar survey seems to indicate that employing a robust Client Experience strategy to drive revenue still does not enjoy wide acceptance within the AEC industry. Furthermore, because the SMPS research largely centered around firms with SMPS members, the drive to develop Client Experience plans may very well be marketing-driven. This certainly isn’t a negative, but does demonstrate the risk of non-marketing-driven firms falling further behind their competitors.

Business-to-Consumer (B2C) industries totally understand and embrace the importance of Customer Experience. As I type this blog, I’m sitting on a Southwest flight en route to meet with a client. (Yes, in person!) Southwest Airlines may be considered a relatively no-frills airline, but they continue to be one of the most successful airlines in the world because of their commitment to Customer Experience, which includes an extensive network of routes, staff with a sense of humor, a great on-time percentage compared to the competition, lower cost flights (often, not always), and a simple app that makes the experience of travel seamless – from buying airline tickets and renting cars to using your phone for boarding passes. Oh, and the whole “two bags fly free” thing. (Alas, no wi-fi on this flight ... so I bump the experience down a notch!)

In 2020,旅行+休闲Magazine reported on results of anairline quality rating study, which found that Southwest experienced a customer complaint rate of 2.64 per 100,000 passengers, the lowest of all airlines. The worst-performing airline saw a complaint rate more than 18 times higher. Furthermore, a2020 J.D. Power surveyranked Southwest Airlines top in customer satisfaction for both long-distance and short-distance flights. They clearly get Customer Experience right.

AEC公司领导者经常认为客户经验在于其营销部门的权限。当然，营销在客户体验中起着至关重要的作用。和业务发展一样。和项目交付。和谈判。和计费。以及您公司与“客户”的每一次互动 - 包括组织成为客户之前的交互，以及项目完成后与他们进行的持续通信。

Mapping the Client Journey

This is known as the客户之旅和任何客户的高效组件Experience strategy is mapping the journey a client takes with your firm. How are they interacting with you? What actions are they taking? What is driving those actions? What are the underlying emotional drivers that may be impacting the things they are saying and doing? What are the pain points they happen to be experiencing at each step in the process? And finally, how can your firm add value to every interaction? After all, if you are not adding value, what is the purpose of the interaction? How is it worth the client’s time and attention?

要了解客户的体验，您确实需要先了解旅程。在客户与公司的旅程方面，一种尺寸并不适合所有。每个客户的旅程略有不同，市场领域 /垂直行业之间的差异可能很大。

Journey mapping is just one element of an effective Client Experience strategy. More holistically, the “experience” is the total of each and every interaction – in-person, telephone, email, social media, website, networking events, etc. For instance:

• If a client requests a piece of information, and you don’t meet their expectations for timeliness, you’ve created a negative experience.
• If the mechanical contractor in the field is awaiting an RFI from the structural engineer regarding roof-loading capacity, and the structural engineer is not timely in the response, there’s been a negative experience.
• If your project manager is having a bad day or is overly-stressed or simply didn’t get enough sleep, this could “leak,” which means that he or she may be curt with the client, or something worse, creating a negative experience.

普华永道的研究发现在美国所有行业中，有17％的客户将在一次负面经历后离开，而59％的客户将在经历一些负面经历后离开。（在全球范围内，三分之一的客户将在一次糟糕的经历后离开。）我们为什么要关心这一点？产品，服务和专业服务之间的购买行为越来越融洽。

Furthermore, the competitive environment is not easing. M&A activity brings mega firms across your town or street. Unhappy employees leave and take clients with them. Entrepreneurial professionals launch new firms with lower overhead and new ideas (and maybe some of your clients). All the while client loyalties are changing – perhaps your primary contacts are retiring, or purchasing departments are now requiring three “bids” after years of just handing you work.

In other words, it ain’t getting any easier to keep clients coming back again and again.

New business development is critical to firm growth. However, too often AEC firms focus all their efforts on landing new business, and not enough resources toward turning their existing clients into happy, raving fans.

客户经验策略

If you want to maintain your market share, much less grow, it is imperative that you dedicate time and resources toward creating positive Client Experiences with each and every interaction. To do that, develop strategy around the many elements of Client Experience, some of which include:

• Conducting client research (qualitative and quantitative)
• 创建客户旅程和移情地图
• Building strategy around specialized focus areas
• 开发理想的客户资料
• 通过获得高级行业知识来了解客户的客户
• Gaining in-depth knowledge of every client
• Implementing Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
• Revisiting your project management practices
• Developing client onboarding programs
• Improving communications among team members and with your clients
• Integrating your technologies with the technologies your clients prefer
• Increasing the engagement of your employees
• 创新和多元化以响应客户和市场需求
• Training staff how to be better communicators, creative thinkers, and emotionally-intelligent professionals
• 将您的营销和品牌与“真实的您”保持一致 - 客户期望营销炒作是真实的：是吗？

如您所见，客户体验策略远远超出了营销，并且确实渗透到公司所做的一切。当您查看此列表时，您能否真正说您定期解决和改进这些项目？还是您只是向他们支付唇部服务，或者更糟糕的是，完全忽略了其中一些领域？

The SMPS research previously referenced found that Client Experience will soon be the single most important sales and marketing strategy among AEC firms, more important than networking, thought leadership, branding, and personal selling. You can be sure that your competitors are looking at ways to improve their Client Experience strategies, which in turn will make them a more attractive option when they come for your clients. Make no mistake: they are coming. Will you be prepared?

How are you addressing Client Experience strategy at your firm? What other elements to you consider part of Client Experience?Drop me a note- I'd love to hear about it!