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Client focus: Overview

How do you gain client focus?

José realized that the best way he could learn about a client's world was to experience it. By talking to his client at work locations, José appreciated what it took to run his client's business, including daily challenges.

A trip to a distribution center helped him to understand logistics; visiting the client's plant site provided insight to its manufacturing operations. On a trip to the company's research site, José learned about his client's vision.

This story illustrates what it sometimes takes to gain client focus for external clients. Client focus is an acute understanding of client needs

and business objectives, and it is just as critical when dealing with internal clients.

This QuickView addresses these questions:

● What is client focus? ● What are client focus skills? ● Why is client focus important to IBM? ● Why is client focus important to you? ● How can you become skilled in client focus?

Before you complete this QuickView, consider checking your understanding of client focus with the QuickCase Preparing for client meeting. This QuickCase puts you in a simulated business environment to help you apply the information from this QuickView.

Client focus: Basicstop

When working with clients, either within IBM or external to IBM, you must develop acute client focus to understand what clients expect from you. It is only by meeting and exceeding these expectations that you can ensure fully satisfied clients.of page

What is client focus?

Why is client focus important to IBM?

Why is client focus important to you?

What are client focus skills?

How can you become skilled in client focus?

What is client focus?

Simply stated, employees with client focus "know the facts" about the client. Outstanding IBM employees understand their clients by putting themselves in the client's situation. By doing so, they not only see the client's needs and business objectives from the client's point of view, but they also learn about the unexpressed or future needs of the client.

Employees can start internally by understanding the environment of IBM and the industry. They should strive to know IBM as an organization and culture, and be aware of company-wide strategies and processes. Employees should know key divisional and departmental targets and goals in order to best contribute to and support them.

Employees having client focus spend time with external clients and others in the marketplace to understand underlying, unmet needs as well as the stated requirements. Based on this understanding, such employees identify new business opportunities by finding a product, service, or solution that is quickly recognized as valuable to the client.

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Why is client focus important to IBM?

Clients expect a certain level of performance from you and expect you to deliver according to agreements and contracts. Knowing your client's needs and expectations enables you to offer better solutions.

From an external perspective, client focus makes good economic sense. Clients tend to be loyal to organizations they believe are interested in their success, and they are willing to pay more for this perceived value. Analysis has shown that higher customer satisfaction results in increased revenue and profit. In addition, by working in clients' marketplaces and truly understanding their needs, you are likely to discover new business opportunities.

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Why is client focus important to you?

Everyone likes to do a good job. Client focus enables you to do a good job by satisfying the following needs:

● Client needs. By meeting your client's needs, your client focus enables you to do a good job in helping your client.

● IBM needs. IBM's needs are met because your client focus enables gaining and retaining a valuable client.

● Your needs. Your needs are met because you have excelled in your job, and thus made your client and your employer happy.

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What are client focus skills?

Employees with good client focus:

● Have a deep understanding of the client's world ● Are able to understand, identify, and satisfy underlying and future needs of clients

● Identify solutions that go beyond the client's request or expectation and add significant value ● Take responsibility to solve client problems

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How can you become skilled in client focus?

The following actions can improve your client focus performance:

● Ask questions and listen to the answers. Know what is valuable to your client. Know what your client expects from you.

● Do your homework. Become a known expert about your client--from the stock symbol, to the industry, to the client's fiercest competitor.

● Develop and demonstrate that you have a keen insight into not just your client's business but your client's problems. Further, show the client that you have thought about those problems and have ideas for solving them.

● Analyze industry data for trends, and help your client identify solutions that could help achieve the client's goals.

● Go beyond the professional relationship you customarily have with your clients. You are expected to be honest, positive, and trustworthy. Former IBM CEO John Akers once said that beyond satisfying client requirements, IBM should "delight" them. Can you pleasantly surprise clients with whom you do business?

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Client focus: FAQs

I have multiple internal and external clients. How do I develop client focus for all of them?The solution is to prioritize. If you cannot develop the focus you would like for every client you have, concentrate on the most important ones. But do not neglect the others. If you feel that you have too many clients, you might need to review this with your management.

I want to go "above and beyond" for my client, but it seems to conflict with the contract scope of work. We have been asked to "just say no." How can I improve client focus in this environment?Clients are usually reasonable when they realize they are asking for something "not in the contract." However, it is vitally important from the beginning that you and your client have the same understanding of what the contract specifies. Understanding your client's business and being committed to the client's success might mean investigating the contract, understanding the scope, challenging the contract, and following the change-control process.

When I get involved in direct client negotiations, it is often because something went wrong. How can I exhibit client focus when I spend so much time solving problems?A client crisis indicates a need for additional client focus. To avoid a crisis and gain client focus, initiate contact with clients when problems have not occurred. As a result of your communication, you will minimize conflict and possibly identify new opportunities.

I understand the basic concepts of client focus, but my manager and I have discussed my need to further develop my skills in this area. How can I achieve a higher level of client focus?The employee characteristics shown in the following graphic demonstrate varying levels of client focus. Note that each characteristic builds on the preceding one.

Read the following list and place yourself in a category. Study the category that is one level higher than the category that you currently placed yourself in, and identify some of the areas in which you can improve your client performance skills.

Needs development: Is responsive to client requests but is not proactive in identifying underlying needs. This includes these behaviors:

● Takes personal responsibility for resolving client issues or entering complaints in the Complaint Management Tool (CMT)

● Ensures that clients' immediate technical needs or complaints are satisfied ● Corrects client problems but does not anticipate future concerns or issues ● Provides the products and services requested by the client

Demonstrated competence: Is responsive to clients and gets others to focus on adding value for clients. This includes these behaviors:

● Helps others make decisions based on value-add for the client ● Demonstrates to others that customer satisfaction is the first priority ● Communicates complex technological issues in a way that clients can understand

Strength: Cooperates with others across the organization to serve the client. This includes these behaviors:

● Works with other departments to provide the winning solution for the client ● Collaborates outside one's own business segment to develop the best product or service for the

client, without regard for personal credit or measurements ● Sets aside favorite projects as well as personal differences with others in various departments to

work together to serve the client

Extraordinary strength: Understands a client's unexpressed business needs and finds ways to meet them. This includes these behaviors:

● Continually seeks information about clients' underlying or future needs ● Anticipates clients' future needs and acts to meet them ● Understands clients well enough to describe their business from their point of view ● Develops the winning technological and business innovation or approach to meet the needs of a

client ● Learns about the marketplace from multiple industry sources (for example, industry consultants,

university researchers, and competitors) and through direct interaction with clients to understand the underlying, unmet needs of clients

● Helps IBM clients to better serve their customers

Review the Survey and Action Plan for Client Focus in the Tools section of this QuickView. The results of this self-assessment and the feedback from colleagues, direct reports, and your immediate manager can be quite insightful. This data can help you select the specific behaviors you want to improve.

Client focus: Tips/Traps

Tips

Adopt the following behaviors to enhance your relationship with your client:

● The next time you get your paycheck or pay statement, imagine that your client authorized it. Without clients, IBM's business does not exist.

● Be proactive. Schedule regular meetings with your client. Do not wait for a problem to get involved.

● Think, act, and talk positively about your clients, and show your enthusiasm for their business and your concern for their problems.

● Show the client that you are committed to them by commenting on industry articles you have read

that relate to the client's business or problems. Clip articles that might be helpful to the client; use this as a reason to schedule a meeting.

Traps

Avoid the following behaviors that can damage your relationship with your client:

● Do not disparage a competitor to keep a client. Tell the truth about your products and services; they must be able to stand on their own merit. Today's competitor might be

tomorrow's client or business partner! ● Do not hesitate to get to know your clients. A complete understanding of the client's needs and

expectations is critical to your ability to ensure customer satisfaction.

Client focus: Tools

Assessing yourself on your client focus characteristics and building an action plan for improving your client focus are two very important tasks in developing client focus.

The following two tools are available to you to assess your progress:Survey for client focusAction plan for improvement

Survey for client focus

To assess yourself on the characteristics in the following tables, consider the following statement when you make your response:

"When appropriate, I act this way with great effectiveness."1=Almost always2=Frequently3=Sometimes4=Seldom5=Almost never

Remember that your client can be within IBM or external to IBM.

Behavior Frequency of practice

I develop solutions that go beyond the client's request or expectation and add significant value.

I stay focused on creating a deep understanding of the client's world.

I strive to understand and to satisfy underlying and future needs of clients.

I take responsibility to solve client problems.

Other indicators of competence

The following behaviors related to the Client focus competency help set specific improvement goals. Choose "Yes" or "No" for each statement.

An employee with good client focus should also answer "Yes" to all of these behaviors when the client is IBM.

Behavior Yes No

I have a copy of my client's current annual report.

I can name my client's top three competitors.

I know where my client's world headquarters is located.

I know what my client's CEO looks like.

I know my client's most-profitable product.

I know how my client advertises.

I can tell you yesterday's closing stock price for my client.

I know my client's strategies and goals for next year.

My client knows that IBM is key to their success.

Action plan for improvement

The following four steps listed can help you build an action plan for improvement. One caution: Do not try to do too much at once. Even if you feel that you need to improve in several characteristics, you are more likely to succeed if you select just one or two that you feel strongest about and concentrate on those. If you try to do too much, you risk failure, and the experience could discourage you from further effort. Challenge yourself, but be sensible about what you can reasonably accomplish.

Define the specific behaviors you want to improve.

● Ask your mentor to monitor and to provide feedback to you about the characteristics you want to improve.

● Ask your direct reports, your peers, and your manager for similar feedback. ● Ask your client, if appropriate, for such feedback.

Set a goal.

● Select an upcoming event where you know you will have a chance to demonstrate characteristics related to client focus.

● Look for additional opportunities to practice behaviors related to client focus.

Explore options.

Consider what you are doing today.

● Do you regularly practice client focus behavior? ● Does it show in a positive sense? ● Can you motivate your team members to act positively with respect to client focus?

Build an action plan.

● Create an action plan for improvement by using the following form. ● Use the information provided in the other sections of this QuickView for tips about determining

what activities you will engage in. ● Specify the date by which you plan to take action. ● Be sure to include details, such as resources required, other persons involved, and milestones, if

appropriate.

Competency action planning worksheet

Goal:

Actions Target date:

Goal:

Actions Target date:

Goal:

Actions Target date:

Goal:

Actions Target date:

Notes:

Client focus: StoriesThe following stories illustrate IBM employees who demonstrate client focus skills.

Dawn's story "Taking responsibility"

Dawn, a team lead in Global Services, relates the time she had a client who wanted detailed information about charges in billing reports. The system was not set up to provide this information, so Dawn went through all of this client's charges on a weekly basis and itemized them. This client was extremely pleased to receive an itemized bill rather than a report of total weekly charges. Dawn personally performed additional work to provide the client with the type of report wanted.

Greg's story "Taking charge"

Greg, a software engineer, had an internal client who was concerned that an advertised feature of a particular software program did not function as it should. Greg investigated the problem, agreed with the client, and took the initiative to contact the third-party vendor directly. He persisted and got the vendor to do a workaround before this "fix" was released to the public. Greg went outside the usual boundaries and escalated his client's problem to those who could resolve it. As a result, he both surprised and elated his client.

Mary's story "Knowing your client"

As a trusted client representative, Mary asked for and received permission to attend her client's executive briefings about technical directions. She briefed her manager after these sessions, helping the team to develop sound strategies for IBM solutions. Mary took extraordinary steps to understand how her client viewed the future.

Rich's story ""Knowing the industry"

Rich regularly accompanied his clients to industry trade shows to understand the direction of a particular industry and the position of any clients in it. "This was my way of finding out if my clients were moving with, ahead, or behind the competition. It also helped me to find out if they were positioned for competitive advantage." Rich demonstrated to his clients that he was committed to helping them succeed. He also gained knowledge of his clients' industries that was invaluable in creating sales strategies tailor-made for their business.

Karin's Team story "Pulling it together"

"The client had planned a big national sale and promotion to take place on Monday morning," says Karin, an IBM sales executive. "But the previous Friday, the client could not load the sale prices into the cash registers. We knew how important this event was to the client's business. We assembled a team of IBMers across the country and worked all weekend with the client to fix the problem. The sale was a huge success!" Karin's team realized that IBM's success ultimately depends on the success of IBM's clients. They were prepared to commit time and resources in an extraordinary way to retain a valued client.

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