Client Care (Good Questions) Flashcards
How do you obtain a client’s brief?
- Based on discussions with client and desktop research.
- Brief should be recorded in writing and used to inform the agreed terms of engagement.
- Could include headings such as a scope of work, required outputs, deadlines and reporting format.
How do you gain an understanding of your client’s objectives?
- Meet with client to discuss objectives and obtain a client’s brief.
- Provide good terms of engagement to ensure both sides are clear on scope and nature of the service being comissioned and the framework within which it has been agreed to carried out.
How do you meet a client’s expectations?
- Clearly define objectives, milestones and timescales
- provide updates in timely manner
- Send out good ToE to avoid later misunderstandings
Would you compromise your professional duty?
No - would decline instruction if it compromised my professional duty.
How do you ensure that you are open, honest and transparent? How does this fit in with RICS ethics?
- In line with Rule 1 of the Code of Conduct ‘‘Members and firms must be honest, act with integrity and comply with their professional obligations to RICS’’
I do not mislead others / allow myself to be influenced improperly / provide my professional advice based on relevant and reliable evidence / ensure I am open and transparent with clients about fees and services and do not facilitate financial crime.
What are KPI’s?
- Essential tool for managing work and clients.
- Indicators are typically agreed in the client brief.
- May include meeting deadlines, reporting within given timeframes or agreeing a certain percentage of settlements within budget.
- To be effective, KPI’s need to be reviewed regularly and performance improved accordingly.
How do you feedback lessons learnt?
- Understand whether the project was a failure or a success - what were the critical success factors?
- Understand what the causes of project failure are - lack of a plan? lack of understanding of scope? poor briefing?
- Understand what mechanisms can be implemented to reduce the risk of future projects failing
- not repeating same mistakes
- improvements in planning
-reducing risks
What behaviours in your working life should you expect to show good client care practice?
- Understand client objectives
- good communication with clients
- complete work to a high standard
- complete work within timescales
- hit milestones within timescales
- Being ethical / transparent / honest / open
What would you consider necessary to consider if you are setting up a complaint handling procedure?
- Publish CHP and direct clients to this
- Record all complaints in a complaints log
- Make sure employees understand what complaints should be logged and where
- Take all complaints seriously and maintain professionalism
- Empower employees to deal with dissatisfaction themselves where appropriate, but encourage them to direct more serious concerns to CHP.
- Handle complaints in a timely manner - acknowledged in 7 days and investigated within 28 days.
- Include approved RICS ADR mechanism in complaints handling procedure - i.e RICS Dispute Resolution Service.
What do you understand by the term corporate social responsibility? Does your company have such a policy?
Corporate Social Responsibility is defined as ‘‘International private business self-regulation’’ and covers philanthropic / Ethical / Economical / Legal responsibilites.
My companies Corporate Social Responsibility policy is:
- Connecting communities with the environment
- Creating engaged employees
3.Inspiring tomorrow’s workforce - Keeping communities safe
- Making rail a great experience
- Making travel accessible and inclusive
- Positive industry partnerships
- Respecting cultural heritage and rail history
Northview Swanley - on what basis was your fee calculated?
Fixed fee basis
Northview Swanley - Explain how you kept this client updated on the valuation of the property?
- Original teams meeting to understand client’s objectives and requirements
- Updates via email at major milestones i.e inspection, valuation, draft report finalised.
- At Network Rail - often have weekly meetings to provide updates on my caseload.
Northview Swanley - Explain how you ensured that all your clients objectives and requirements were known and that your instruction scope was understood?
- I undertook an initial teams meeting to understand my client’s objectives and requirements and obtain a client brief.
- I utilised the client brief to form my terms of engagement which included the scope of works, outputs and deadlines.
Northview Swanley - explain how you communicated with this client, whether in person or via email and the pros and cons of each type?
- Communications for this instruction were done via an initial teams meeting to understand client objectives and then via email following this.
Verbal communication can be far more effective than written communication, especially when trying to resolve an issue or explore alternative opportunities or delivering unwelcome news. Better at building rapport with your client.
Written communication can be useful when providing minor updates, or when you need a written record / confirm key points in writing. Follow up phone calls can be used if clarification is required.
Peckham Rye - What feedback did you receive from the client, and how has this taught you to improve your service going forward?
- Feedback was positive as the instruction was handled within the agreed timeframe and within budget.
- If the feedback had been negative I would have directed my client to my firm’s complaint handling procedure
- I would have sought to learnt what went wrong and how this can be improved:
i.e if I was unable to obtain access within the agreed timeframe what was the reasoning behind this? Did negotiations take longer than expected, why?
