1st October 2012

Aegon: Develop services your customers want – and will pay for

A question I keep getting asked by advisers is ‘what should my service proposition look like’. To be honest I don’t have the answer because it’s their business and their clients needs.

However, what I can provide is a framework to design and implement a service proposition that clients will value and pay for. It’s called asking your clients what they want!

The starting point of designing a client service proposition has to be asking your clients what they want need and expect from you.

Imagine you are doing your Saturday shopping or as Peter Kay would call it, the big shop. What do you expect to see, is it:

• Well stocked shelves
• A warm welcoming environment
• Self service tills
• An abundance of trolleys
• Bargains such as BOGOF
• Own brands.

If you experience this, do you then rush off home, take in your shopping and then perhaps call your friends or family and tell them of the shopping experience?

Of course not, that’s because that’s what you expected. If people get what they expect they are usually happy. In any service profession the bare minimum of service has to be what clients or customers expect.

Research shows, if clients or customers get less than they expected they are dissatisfied. Worse still people are more likely to talk about bad service; it’s just the behaviour of the western consumer.

I would ask every one of you as you are designing your service proposition do you know what your clients expect of you? If you do fine but if not why don’t you ask them.

While you are at it why don’t you ask them what they value most from their relationship with you?

Sociologists have identified that consumers and clients are most happy to pay for what they value.

Again I ask, you do you know what your clients value? If you do then this should be the centre point of any proposition. If you don’t then why not ask them.

For help in contacting your clients have a look at our research area on the business brain website.

John Joe McGinley
Head of Business Brain AEGON
September 2012

RDR