Client Care Flashcards
(39 cards)
What is client care?
Client care is identifying all types of clients and adopting suitable behaviours to develop good relationships along with procedures to manage good quality service, all within the public interest
What are the principles of client care?
- Identifying different clients and their needs
- Identifying key drivers of the client
- Understanding client targets or KPIs
- Good communication
What behaviours establish good client relationships?
- Active listening
- Clear, concise communication
- Behaviours sometimes tailored to individuals
- Gathering feedback and implementing it
- Asking questions to clarify client objectives
- Professional tone/behaviours
What does good client care entail?
- Understanding of the client and their key drivers
- A professional approach/working relationship
- Clear, concise communication
- A quality assurance policy – like being aligned to ISO 9001
- A complaints handling procedure
- Professional indemnity insurance
Who are your clients in your role?
MSG but can also be MSC. When referring to MSC, their clients are 70% public sector (Department for Education or NHS) and 30% private
When have you collected data for clients?
Examples:
- Scope 3 accounting
- Collecting 10tC data
What is ISO 9001?
ISO 9001 is a globally recognised system for quality management. It helps organisations to improve their performance, meet client requirements and demonstrate a commitment to quality
Why do clients care about ISO 9001?
Benefits of ISO 9001 is customer confidence, complaints handling procedures, improved processes and ongoing optimisation
What is MSC’s view on ISO 9001?
MSC has a Quality Management Plan which aligns and is certified by ISO 9001. This is part of our wider Project Execution Plan (PEP). The Quality Management Plan defines where documents and records are kept which confirm how the project is managing quality. These are kept on SIMS. The QMP is a live document which is reviewed throughout the project
What is an example of a time when you have provided excellent client care?
Acting on feedback from CarboniCa users, I created client targets within CarboniCa. It had been requested from clients in the East that it would be good to visual their progress against carbon targets visually. After receiving this feedback, I advised my client MSG that I should create this function. They approved and I drafted the instruction for our software engineers
When setting up a project in CarboniCa The way this looked was an additional tab in CarboniCa next to the headline data where
How do you interact with clients?
- Professionally
- Effective listening and understanding of their objectives
How do you act upon feedback from a client?
Feedback should be manually recorded somewhere, like a client feedback questionnaire. If negative feedback, necessary action should be taken to rectify the situation. If a formal approach is required, this should follow the complaints handling procedure. An addition would be to recommend advice and polices to rectify the complaint so it does not happen again
How do clients pay you? How would you behave if a client wished to pay you upfront?
In my role clients do not pay me, however if I were to set up alone:
1. I would ensure that a client account is set up in line with the RICS Professional Standard - Handling Client Money
2. I would issue a statement of the account to the client once set up
3. I would agree with the client how monies would be drawn
4. I would issue a revised statement every time the client withdrew monies
5. Once the project was complete, I would issue a reconciliation of the account and explain to the client to reiterate every time money was drawn
How do MSC handle/store client money?
- MSC has a full commercial management process
- Typically we are paid in advance for work
- Projects manage their own profit and loss
How can you meet a clients’ requirements?
Work with the client to best understand their requirements, asking for clarity if unsure, debrief the team/stakeholders on the requirements
If you were going to set up a business as a surveyor, what insurance would I need to set up?
Professional indemnity – amount depends on the turnover of the business. I would choose the provider by looking at the RICS published list of approved providers
If setting up a business and you had an office/property, what other insurance would you need?
Employers liability insurance. This covers employers for compensation claims against them by employees for accidents or incidents at work
What is a client brief? What does this contain?
A client brief outlines a clients objectives, expectations, target audience, timeline, budget, any other specific requirements
How do you identify stakeholders in a project?
Depending on the project type, I would look at stakeholders across my organisation, or they might need to be geographically located or have certain previous experience. I establish their scope with a clear and concise brief. I would then prioritise them using Mendelow’s Matrix.
How do you refer a client to your complaints handling procedure?
Typically, it would be included in terms and conditions to the Client. At MSC, it would be defined in the Quality Management Plan. However, in my role, it is likely I would also brief this in an introductory call when setting up a project, especially if there are multiple stakeholders
How can you ensure that complaints do not occur?
- Effective communication throughout the relationship – this minimises complaints
- We have a ‘Perfect Delivery’ framework to ensure this
Why would you use a KPI?
To provide a quantitative measurement against a topic. For MSC, it is important that the client KPIs are met to the ambition as this goes into reporting. KPIs are also useful to generate healthy competition between decentralised regions
How to set up KPIs? (Level 2 example)
Identify a topic which the client wishes to be improved, develop a methodology of how to track it across business units, inform the business units, collect the data, review progress against the ambition, monitor and repeat
Example of the 10tC KPI – We have challenged our businesses to complete a 10tC on 80% of our projects under PCSA or on site. Exemptions are projects under £2m, or less than 3 months. I track 10tC case studies, sense check/triangulate the data and then report them on our PST which calculates the KPI
The logic of the 10tC is linked to % of our scope 3 accounting
These KPIs are shared monthly with our business units
An example of a time when something has been outside of my competence
Asked by the project manager on the Regenerative Twin to advise on complex building services and energy calculations, this is not my area of expertise as my focus however I put them in touch with a member of my team who leads on building services
