Consulting Journal: Techniques

Techniques: Following up

by David Blakey

Always follow up with your clients after anything you do. It can bring you extra business.

[Monday 3 September 2001]

When you have provided something for a client, or started something for a client, or completed something for a client, a follow-up call will tell you that the client has received the item or is aware of the action starting or knows that the action has ended. In a way, it is a kind of ‘sign-off’ without a formal procedure for the client.

It also lets the client know that you care about the quality of your service to them. Many consultants do not bother with follow-up calls. As a result, their clients may think that these consultants are not interested in an ongoing working relationship with them. They may be right.

What follow-up calls are

When you send a document to a client by email or courier or ordinary post, a follow-up call will tell the client that it is on the way. A second follow-up call, after a suitable delay, will tell you whether the client has received it. In that second call, or in a subsequent third call, you can find out if the client has any queries about the document. Some of these calls may lead to formal procedures, although the calls themselves will be informal. As an example, once you have confirmed that the client has received a document, you can ask them to send you a written confirmation, ‘for the record’.

The point about the follow-up call is that it is made in real time, while the formal procedures and documentation may take some time to complete. Follow-up calls can be by email, except in two circumstances.

A follow-up of an email by another email is inappropriate. Do the follow-up by telephone.
A follow-up that requires confirmation by the client is inappropriate by email, because it will not save time. Do the follow-up by telephone and get verbal confirmation immediately.

Formal procedures

At this point, you may say that your company has formal procedures for confirming that events have occurred and milestones have been reached, so that these informal follow-up calls are unnecessary. Let me persuade you otherwise.

In many consulting companies, the formal procedures and methodologies provide documentation that can be referred to in the event of a dispute. They can be used as evidence in legal proceedings. These companies have these procedures and methodologies as a means of protecting themselves rather than as a way of providing service to their clients. I am not suggesting that you abandon the formal procedures. I am suggesting that you add the informal follow-up call procedure to them. Therefore, as well as getting a formal sign-off from the client at each stage of an assignment, you can telephone them - usually before the formal sign-off procedure has started - and confirm directly that they are happy to sign off.
The formal procedures can be relatively ‘faceless’. I have encountered consulting firms where direct contact was established and maintained by senior consultants while the formal procedures were initiated by the partners. This meant that the clients saw the senior consultants and worked with them daily, with intermittent formal letters arriving from a partner whom the client rarely saw. I agree that in consulting firms a partner has a responsibility to ensure that their client signs off on the reports, products and services that are delivered to them. I do not agree that this responsibility implies that it is the partner who should personally ensure that these sign-offs occur. Where they do, it is important that the consultant should ‘pave the way’ for the formal sign-off by an informal, verbal agreement with the client.
Despite the formality, the consulting company actually has little control over a procedure that involves the client taking some action, which, in this case, is usually just signing and dating a form. This is such an important issue, that we shall now explore it in detail.

Getting a sign-off

It is easy to view a client sign-off simply as a formality that enables you to bill your client. Often, the formal procedures will include a form that is sent to the client that states that they accept whatever you have delivered to them, with spaces for them to sign and to insert the date. To the consultant, it can be a very ‘black and white’ issue: the client either accepts or they don't.

To the client, however, the issue may be more ‘grey’. They may have questions about your work and need to have these questions answered before they will be happy to sign off. These questions may not be straightforward factual questions. They may be about the impact of your recommendations on their management culture or about how they will present your recommendations to the board. These questions - or doubts or worries - may be in their own minds, and they may have difficulty in articulating them to you. This is when a follow-up call may be useful.

Instead of asking ‘Will you sign off my report?’, you can ask ‘How do you feel about the report?’ From their tone of voice, as much as from their words, you can tell a good deal about how they really do feel about it. You can then continue to encourage them to express their views. Eventually, they may say ‘Well, I will have some problems in putting this to the board.’ Then you can say ‘I should be able to help you with that.’ You can then arrange an extension of your assignment to work on the board report. Having agreed to that, you can then say ‘Given the work that we still need to do for the board, does the report actually give you what you wanted?’ When they say ‘Yes’, you can ask ‘So you'd be happy to sign it off, knowing that we will prepare a new version for the board?’ If they then say ‘Yes’, you have got your sign-off. You can follow this conversation up with a proposal for the additional work and a sign-off form for the completed work.

The result of your follow-up call may mean not only a completed sign-off but also a satisfied client and increased billing. Not bad for five minutes' work.

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