Professional V Mass Services

Clearly good customer service is vital in any consultancy assignment. However, when thinking about customer service in consultancy, it is vital to distinguish between

a mass service as provided by a fast food restaurant or a shop.
a professional service as provided by a solicitor, architect, or doctor.

Most customer service ideas are based on providing a mass service. Although there are elements in common, there are also significant differences, summarised in the table below.

Mass Services	Professional Services
Has Customers	Has Clients
Usually a one-off contact	Regular or Repeating contact
Brief contact - a transaction	Extended Client contact - a project
Customers with similar needs	Clients with varying needs
Pre-prepared service	Service created/customised for particular client.
Customer often knows exactly what they want	Clients often does not have the technical expertise to know what they want - they just want a solution to their problem

Key Conclusion

Serving clients is different to serving customers.

Each client is unique with particular needs and all consultants need to invest time and effort in building and maintaining the relationship. In particular:

in understanding their clients situation,
in building trust and a relationship with them,
in ensuring that their client is up-to-date with progress
in ensuring their client keeps them up-to-date on relevant developments
in ensuring that their client understands sufficiently the professional or technical options available - even at times coaching or training their client in this.