How personal should you get with clients?

As consultants, we have a special role when interacting with our clients. Although we only work with them for a limited time, from a few weeks to months, the level and intensity of interaction is very high. With that, naturally, comes getting to know each other. Long meetings and long working days spent together, water cooler-talks, joint team dinners, etc., often lead to a certain level of intimacy. But how personal should you get? Where are the boundaries, and what are the pitfalls?

• You always work FOR them.
  Even if you achieve your results in strong collaboration WITH them – which is for sure my preferred way of doing consulting – you are still hired as an external advisor. This distance is important to keep perspective. Quarterly results have improved while you were there? Great! Still, it was “your quarterly results”, not “our quarterly results”. Clients achieve results through our help, but THEY achieve them.
• Never disclose internal information or talk bad about your firm.
  It should be clear that you don’t disclose internal information about your firm to the client. This would destroy your reputation, just as if you disclosed sensitive information from another client – they’d have to assume you will go telling their secrets to someone else as well.
  On top of that, never bad-mouth your firm. You might be angry about your staffing manager because he put you on an assignment in Siberia or loathing the “coffee” in your home office: That is no matter for chit-chat with the client. It is normal to have some things to criticize about your own company – but you don’t do it publicly. It discredits you and the firm… and incidentally, the client you are yapping to about the bad coffee just started thinking why exactly he was paying so much money for such a crappy consulting firm. Keep a positive note when they ask you about your firm. You are an ambassador, act responsibly. If you can’t, this should really get you thinking if you are working for the right firm.
• “Sie” or “Du” / “Tom” or “Mr. Hanks”.
  Although you normally always start out with addressing your clients formally, there might come a point where they offer you to “just call me Tom”, and in non-English languages, that most of the time goes in hand with addressing them informally as well.
  Should you do it? General rule of thumb: No. Decline respectfully, thanking your client, and tell him that after the project is over, you’d be glad to do so. It keeps you on the safe side.
  If you consider it nonetheless -and there is no rule in your firm against that-, be very aware of the culture of your client company and the country you are working in. Don’t do under any circumstance in companies where the informal address signals personal friendship. That could well jeopardize your credibility as an objective and facts-driven advisor.

Alright, enough for now. In part two, I’ll talk about three more things that are real no-no’s in dealing with your clients.

What are your thoughts on those points? War-stories to share? Let us know in the comments!

As consultants, we have a special role when interacting with our clients. Although we only work with them for a limited time, from a few weeks to months, the level and intensity of interaction is very high. With that, naturally, comes getting to know each other. Long meetings and long working days spent ...