Professional services firms put visible care into winning work. The prospect is researched, the proposal is tailored, senior people attend the meeting and questions receive fast answers. The firm presents its most coordinated version of itself.
Ask what happens during the first 30 days after the engagement letter is signed and the description often becomes less specific. It depends on the partner, the team, the service and how busy everyone is.
That variability creates an experience gap. The client has judged the firm through an attentive pitch and then encounters its everyday operating system. Technical work may remain strong while onboarding, communication, billing and access to information become harder than the promise implied.
The source article’s sharpest observation is that the pitch has a named owner and a direct incentive. The ongoing client experience often has neither. That structural difference explains more than an appeal for everybody to be “more client focused”.
The pitch sets an operating expectation
Clients do not necessarily expect pitch-level theatre forever. They can still infer something about how the relationship will work. Prompt answers suggest responsiveness. A tailored proposal suggests the firm understands their context. A coherent team suggests clear coordination.
After appointment, those expectations meet delivery reality. Information may be requested twice. New people appear without an introduction. The promised portal is available without being useful. An invoice contains categories the client cannot reconcile with the work. None of these events proves that the professional advice is poor. Together, they can change how safe, easy and valued the relationship feels.
A firm should avoid assuming that experience drives every retention decision. Capability, results, price, conflicts, consolidation, leadership change and procurement policy all matter. The aim is to identify avoidable friction that weakens an otherwise valuable relationship.
Five common breaks in the relationship
1. Onboarding varies by partner
One team has a defined welcome, clear requests and a first-month plan. Another begins with a chain of emails from different people. The client’s experience of joining the same firm depends on who won the work.
Map the minimum onboarding journey that every client should receive, then identify where services genuinely need to differ. The core may include:
- a named relationship lead and delivery contacts;
- the first milestones and decisions;
- a coordinated request for information;
- billing and communication expectations;
- access and support for any digital service; and
- confirmation that the client can raise questions or accessibility needs.
Standardisation should remove avoidable uncertainty, not erase professional judgement. A complex transaction and a recurring advisory service should not be forced through identical steps.
2. Communication has no reliable rhythm
A client may receive several messages in one week and nothing in the next. Internally, the team knows work is progressing. Externally, the gaps can look like inactivity.
Agree what the client needs to know, when and from whom. A regular update can create reassurance, provided it contains useful information: progress, decisions, risks, next actions and anything required from the client. A scheduled empty email is process compliance without service value.
The rhythm should also define exceptions. Urgent news should not wait for the next scheduled update, and some clients will prefer a different frequency or channel.
3. The portal is present and peripheral
Showing a portal in the pitch creates an expectation that it will improve the work. If the client receives a link without guided activation, finds incomplete information and returns to email, the firm has technically delivered access and operationally created another channel.
The source article’s link about a portal with 14% adoption uses a specific figure that should be treated as an article premise unless supported by the firm’s own analytics. The underlying diagnostic remains sound: measure repeat completion of valuable tasks rather than account creation alone.
Design around the client’s task. They may want to submit a document, approve an action, check status or retrieve a report for a board meeting. Internal labels and filing structures should not make those tasks harder.
Our separate article on why client portals are used once and abandoned explores the design and adoption problem in more detail.
4. The invoice requires interpretation
An invoice can be technically correct and still create uncertainty. Unexpected timing, unexplained variation, internal work descriptions or a gap between the client’s view of progress and the amount billed may force an uncomfortable query.
Set billing expectations during onboarding. Where scope or cost changes materially, discuss it before the invoice arrives. Test invoices with people who understand the client relationship as well as the finance system. The goal is transparency suited to the engagement, subject to the firm’s legal and professional obligations.
Billing experience is commercial evidence. Repeated questions, delayed payment and write-offs may reveal problems in scope, communication or invoice design rather than unwillingness to pay.
5. The relationship disappears between matters
When active work ends, communication may end with it. A client then receives useful information from a competitor or encounters another adviser at the next point of need.
Relevant contact between matters can sustain the relationship. It should be based on the client’s interests and permissions, not an automated stream of generic content. A short note connected to a known issue may be more valuable than a frequent newsletter.
Define relationship ownership during inactive periods. Otherwise every person may assume somebody else is staying in touch.
The gap is produced by the operating model
The pitch usually has an accountable partner, a deadline, a visible outcome and an incentive to coordinate. Once work begins, responsibility is distributed across delivery, operations, finance, technology and the relationship partner. Each function can perform its own task while nobody owns the combined experience.
“Everyone owns the client experience” is an aspiration rather than governance. Assign accountability at three levels:
- Relationship level: one person owns the overall health of the client relationship and the promises made during selection.
- Journey level: named owners maintain onboarding, billing, portal and other cross-firm processes.
- Interaction level: each team member knows the decision or task they own and how to escalate friction.
The relationship owner does not personally manage every touchpoint. They need enough visibility and authority to identify a broken handoff and obtain a response.
Incentives matter. If senior people are rewarded for winning work and utilisation while onboarding and relationship work has no protected capacity, the gap is predictable. Leaders should examine targets, workload and reporting before treating inconsistency as an attitude problem.
Find evidence beyond a satisfaction score
Client satisfaction surveys can be useful and may still miss vulnerability. A client can give a reasonable score, avoid confrontation and consider another firm at the same time.
Combine several forms of evidence:
- interviews at defined relationship points;
- onboarding completion and repeated information requests;
- response and update patterns;
- portal task completion and return use;
- billing queries, delays and write-offs;
- complaints and service recovery;
- scope expansion or contraction;
- tender and loss feedback; and
- interviews with clients who reduced or ended work.
Ask behavioural questions. “Tell us about the last time you needed an update” is more revealing than “Are we good communicators?” Seek permission to discuss specific friction without turning the conversation into a defence of the firm.
Avoid claiming that a fixed proportion of attrition is caused by experience. Build a firm-specific view. For each lost or reduced relationship, separate confirmed client evidence, internal interpretation and unknowns. Patterns across several cases can guide action without pretending causation is certain.
Close one gap at a time
A client-experience programme can easily become a list of every service imperfection. Start with a commercially important journey and a recognisable failure point.
For example, map the first 30 days from signed engagement to settled delivery. Include the client’s actions, the front-stage interactions they see, the back-stage work, systems, handoffs, controls and points where the experience varies. Compare the pitch promise with the actual journey.
Choose a small number of changes with owners and measures. These might be a coordinated information request, a named first-month contact, a billing expectation conversation or guided portal activation. Test them with real clients and delivery teams before standardising them.
Technology can support sequence, visibility and self-service. It cannot compensate for an unclear service, poor professional work or absent ownership. Distinction is a digital consultancy and may benefit commercially from related work, so the recommendation should begin with the journey and evidence rather than a platform purchase.
The purpose is not to make every interaction feel like a pitch. It is to ensure the coordination and care demonstrated while winning the client survive contact with the firm’s operating reality.
If you want to examine that reality across selection, onboarding, delivery and the periods between matters, book a client journey mapping workshop. The same exercise can be run internally if the firm has neutral facilitation, access to client evidence and authority to change the processes it uncovers.
