The document discusses the challenges faced by client services professionals and organizations with client services functions. Some challenges for client services practitioners include keeping skills and competencies updated, finding valuable peer forums, and gaining recognition from peers and clients. Organizational challenges involve attracting, developing, and retaining talent, defining roles, ensuring the function adds value and is fee-earning. The document proposes some ways to meet these challenges, such as developing standards and competencies, a client services academy for development, tools to work efficiently, and demonstrating the value client services brings to relationships.

1. Client Services Breakfast
13 May 2014

2. The Challenges of a CS professional

4. • 17 years = 119!
• Falling into CS
• Growing up
• My passion
About Me

5. Challenges
• Challenges of being a Client Services
professional
• Challenges of having a Client Services
function within your business

6. CS practitioner challenges
 Understanding which key skills, attributes and
competencies are associated with the different roles
within a CS team
 Keeping up to date
 Finding peer forums that add value enough to create the
time and space to engage
 Recognition of the CS function amongst peers and
clients
Organisational challenges
 Attracting, nurturing and retaining talent
 Professional development in an ever-changing, dynamic
sector
 Role definition and ensuring process and culture
appropriately integrate, ensuring a CS professional can
add maximum value within their own company
 Chargeability and ensuring that CS is not an overhead
but a fee earning function within the business
 Developing a CS function that can interchange between
new business and an account scenario
Challenges

7. Challenges
• Meeting challenges

8. • A framework of standards and attainment that
manages competencies in a discipline where we are all
one of a kind
• A CS Academy that nurtures and develops talent
• Permanent talent watch
• Business structure and processes that are inclusive
and facilitate a CS professional playing the right role,
therefore delivering the maximum ROI
• Appreciation of the overall role that a CS professional
plays to win, grow and retain commercially viable
accounts
• Tools and systems to ensure that the team can work
efficiently and manage information back into the
business effectively
• A CS team that can articulate and demonstrate the
value they bring to client relationships and therefore
have an ability to sell themselves as well as they sell
their colleagues
… Or rather where to start

9. • Empowered professionals
• Clear roles and responsibilities
• Respect of management, peers and clients
• Authority and remit
• Tools and processes
• Knowledge
• Deliver relationships that are:
 Mature
 Open and transparent
 Sustainable
 Profitable
 Based on trust and ones that recognise the
immense value you as a business bring
CS and the Virtuous Circle

10. THANK YOU