Client Care Flashcards
1). What are the key elements of client care?
– Identifying Clients: consider both existing and potential new clients. Existing clients requires active management and support. New clients should be aligned to particular market sectors and providing relevant experience and knowledge aligned to their requirements.
– Types of Client: An understanding that different sectors of the industry have varying structures and these affect the nature of the client and their general objectives and interests.
– Behaviours: this should align to the 5 Ethical Standards of the RICS (Integrity, High level of Service, Trust, Respect, and Responsibility). These core standards should be present in all work carried out under your engagement.
– Client Account Management: this should be carried out in a structured way, ensuring that developments in the client organisation are tracked and that there is interaction at a number of seniority levels.
– Regular Contact: there should be a process of maintaining regular contact away from current live projects to identify how assistance can be provided with longer term client business objectives.
– Client Feedback: process for collecting and responding to client feedback. This is useful to gage the level of service being provided and the client satisfaction with the service.
– Business Development: the concept of arranging off line business development activities and events as a mechanism to build broader relationships with clients.
– Complaints: maintaining alternative lines of communication / routes for complaints and how these should be dealt with by a practice. There should also be the option for clients to make formal complaints to the RICS.
2). Why is client care important to your organisation?
– We provide advisory / consultancy services and a high level of trust between ourselves and our clients is essential for a successful project delivery.
– We also rely heavily on repeat business and have our reputation to maintain in order to be successful.
3). What is the procedure at your company for client feedback?
– We maintain constant communication at varying levels of seniority with the client. This open dialogue promotes constant feedback.
– We hold monthly project reviews internally to discuss progress.
– We hold weekly resource reviews to ensure each client has the appropriate amount of resource to deliver on our engagements.
– We issue satisfaction surveys and questionnaires to clients at the end of each project.
4). What is the complaints handling procedure for the RICS?
– it is a Redress mechanism for resolving or compensating dissatisfaction.
– Details issued to the client with terms of business
– The complaint must be dealt with within 28 days
– Must have 2 stages of investigation at least
– if not resolved then it is referred to a third party
5). What is the complaints procedure at your company?
– Complaint is received either verbally or written.
– Dissatisfaction / complaint is identified.
– Relevant parties are notified of the dissatisfaction, including Project Partner.
– Relevant partner or director issues acknowledgement to the client of receiving the complaint. – The complaint is reviewed by the partner / director – Action nominee carries out the required actions to resolve the complaint.
– Response to complaint is issued to complainant and response is requested to assess whether the complainant is satisfied with the action.
– If satisfied the complaint process is referred to an internal group to be reviewed and logged under a lessons learnt protocol.
– Or unsatisfied the process is repeated until satisfied or escalated to the RICS for third party review.
6). Give an example of when you had to deal with divergent interests from different stakeholders?
– I was asked by a developer to carry out a feasibility study for a development of a site for the client’s appraisal.
– This exercise was to be used for a residual valuation of the site before agreement of purchase value.
– The company I was working for were also representing the seller of the site.
– Completely open with the client and notified the client that we were also representing the site owner and there was a conflict.
– The site owner wanted to use the residual valuation to increase the value of land, the developer wanted to reduce the value of the land.
– In this instance I informed the client we would be unable to carry out the feasibility study, due to the conflict of interest.
– The client understood and appreciated the honesty.
7). Give an example of when you had to deal with a sensitive situation and apply your duty of care against your client’s requests?
– On the Heaps Mill & Park Lane project I was asked to carry out a VAT and Capital Allowances analysis of the project.
– Unfortunately although I am aware of what capital allowances are and varying levels of VAT rates I am not an expert.
– I deemed that this analysis was outside of more competence and so advised the client to seek specialist professional advice.
– Although the client was disappointed, this was the right thing to do to maintain trust and transparency.
8). Give an example of when you exceeded your clients’ expectations / provided excellent client care?
– When asked to do a stage 2 cost plan for a client I produced a document that went beyond the client’s expectations.
– This included a full benchmarking exercise on the client’s portfolio; including cost and physical benchmark data.
– This was able to highlight areas of the design which were above and beyond the clients brand standard.
– This was greatly appreciated by the client and opened up a dialogue in the design team to find potential Value Engineering options.
9). What are the specificities of a framework client?
– They expect us to know their organisation in detail.
– They expect us to have an in–depth understanding of their business plan and tot take into account their long–term objectives.
– Timescales tend to be tighter and there can sometimes be pressure on fees.
10). How do you encourage repeat business?
– High level of service
– Obtain feedback and act on it
– Deal with complaints honestly and effectively
– Communication / Keep in touch with clients even when you have no live projects
– Organise business development events (Social Events / CPD events)
11). What re the advantages / disadvantages of working from a client’s office?
– Quicker and clearer lines of communication
– Better understanding of client’s organisation and culture, needs and expectations
– Loss of technical support of colleagues
– Progressive alienation from our organisations culture.
12). Give an example of when you learnt from a mistake?
– Early on in my career I agreed with a sub–contractor to include the value of works for materials off–site (whilst on a site visit).
– Upon checking the valuation with my line manager it was clear that a vesting certificate would need to be in place before payment should be made.
– At this point I had not officially processed / issued the valuation.
– I called the sub–contractor to explain my error and rectified the valuation accordingly.
– In the next valuation I made sure that there was a vesting certificate in place before payment of materials off–site was made.
13). What is a business plan?
– A business plan is a formal statement of business goals, reasons they are attainable, and plans for reaching them.
– It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals.
– May identify key clients and key sources of revenue.
14). What are the benefits of using a business plan?
– clarify your business idea
– spot potential problems
– set out your goals
– measure your progress
15). What should a business plan include?
–detailed financial forecasts and assumptions;
– market research data;
– CVs of key personnel (essential if you are seeking outside funding);
– product literature or technical specifications.
