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The Practice Doctor: Surveying Your Clients
Peggy from Southern California writes: “Al…I have about 700 clients in my book. Some are inherited, some orphaned but mostly mine after 12 years of advising. I really need to get a feel for how they perceive my practice. I have finally hired an assistant who I think is a keeper and would like to start a survey of my client base. What kinds of things should I be asking and how do I go about doing that?” A good question on a cool, breezy autumn day here in Southern Minnesota. Determining what lurks beneath the surface of one’s clientele is an appropriate task for the season of masquerading. “What are my clients really thinking about me and my practice? They seem happy enough…but I’m just not sure….” A subsequent call to Peggy revealed the following:
From a best practices vantage point, an ongoing process of determining client satisfaction is preferable to a one-time survey. This approach allows for constant feedback and allows you to make changes as necessary. Peggy’s already done the important work: segmenting her clients. Now we need to determine the feedback she would like to get and how to execute the survey. In putting together a client survey, there are 6 essential elements to consider:
In scaling responses, it’s important to either go with a scale of 4 or 6. This is to avoid the default “middle” response that an odd number would provide, which wouldn’t tell you anything of value. 1 = excellent What follows are templates for you to modify with your language preferences and branding. These are designed to be mailed, but can also be adapted for phone and e-mail use.
Peggy can choose from the above sections, creating a survey that suits her needs. She might have a set of three questionnaires, one appropriate for each client segment. You’re looking for deeper responses from the Platinum and Gold folks and simpler, more generic questions from the silver group. To implement, I would suggest taking each of the top 3 client segments (not the Tin and Lead levels) and spreading them out over 4 quarters. This would be 80 surveys to be sent with return, stamped envelopes at the beginning of January, April, July and October. After the surveys have been mailed, Peggy and her assistant should be calling the Platinum and Gold level clients to put in a personal request for completion of the survey. These are the practice’s most important clients and we’d like to get at least a 70% completion rate from them. Once these results are in, Peggy can repeat the same pattern for the Tin-level clients the following year, with a minimalist survey. Every four years, embark on a similar process. As for interpreting the results and implementing changes based on the feedback, that’s a discussion for another column! Happy surveying, Peggy! The Practice Doctor is OUT. Al Depman , CLU, ChFC, CMFC, BH, a.k.a. “The Practice Doctor”, is mitchanthony.com’s Business Practice Consultant. He is the creator of “The Practice Management Assessment” tool and materials and has authored numerous articles in professional publications on practice management. Al combined his Liberal Arts studies with 10 years of management experience with McDonald’s Corporation to enter the financial services world 22 years ago. Since then, Al has evolved from an MDRT-level sales rep into a full-time consultant specializing in helping others engineer their business practices to the next level. Contact him at al@mitchanthony.com . © 2007 Al Depman |
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Al Depman, CLU ChFC CMFC BH |
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