One of my favorite quotes to remind us of the importance of the planning process comes from Ike.  Dwight Eisenhower tells us:

“The Plans are Nothing.  Planning is Everything.”

Is yours one of the many firms which waste too many thousands of dollars on “consultants” who develop and package a ”strategic plan” for their client?  I hope not. I’ve noticed that, nearly always, such documents sit on the client’s office shelf,  and get dusted off once a year for the annual planning meeting.

Many professional services firms regularly measure the “satisfaction level” of their current clients.  I certainly recommend it.  

Most firms use surveys and they believe that these survey measurements serve as leading indicators of our clients’ future actions regarding very important areas. 

The “big three” questions to probe are usually: How likely is it that our clients will remain our clients? How likely are the clients to recommend our firm to others? How likely will the clients increase their level of purchases from our firm?

Ultimately, what we are measuring is LOYALTY. A “loyal” client is more likely to recommend us to others and increase their level of purchases from us. And, a loyal client is less likely to fire us.

Importantly, of all commonly used loyalty measurements, “recommend intention” (i.e., “How likely are you to recommend our firm to others…”) seems by far to be the best predictor of client loyalty and related actions. 

Other questions on your survey may be important and are commonly used to monitor client relationship perceptions but, when all is said and done,  the so-called “recommend intention” is the most important and more likely to have predictive validity than other measurements.