Client-consultant relationship

By Fiona Czerniawska.

Does anyone who designs consulting firms’ websites and/or writes the content for them actually think about clients?

I was on a conference call with a firm a couple of years ago. It was a particularly difficult situation as we’d been asked by the senior partner to look at how effectively the firm was marketing itself, and this call was to explain and defend our findings to the marketing team. Some of what we had to say was positive, but at the heart of their efforts was a shiny new website that was difficult to navigate, appallingly badly written, and almost certainly guaranteed to put off all but their most loyal clients (who probably wouldn’t be looking at the website anyway). As people started to argue, I played what I guessed would be our trump card: “What kind of client input did you get?”, I asked innocently.

By Fiona Czerniawska.

My husband, a mild-mannered but physically imposing man, once ripped up an IKEA catalogue in front of the store’s checkout assistant.

To be fair, we’d been waiting in the queue for two hours, having inadvertently visited the store on a morning when it started a major sale, but in our defence I’d plead that only a small number of the checkouts were manned, and that it was a long time since we’d had breakfast. We’d done the usual things—eyeing up the shelves of lingonberry jam, discussing whether that pot plant was just what was needed for the study, wondering why Swedish is the language it is. But two hours was still two hours, and by the time we started to load our heavy boxes on to a conveyor belt clearly designed for professional weightlifters, my husband had clearly had enough. “There’s no way we’re ever going to shop in Ikea again*,” he said, letting rip literally and figuratively.

You’re probably thinking that this doesn’t have much to do with consultants. Premium consulting, all expensive suits and business travel, seems a world away from cheerful flat packs, but pause for a moment.

By Alison Huntington.

I recently interviewed a consultant who was telling me about a digital transformation programme he’d worked on with one of Britain’s police forces. As part of the programme, each front-line officer was given a tablet to replace the traditional policeman’s notebook. The technology would mean accurate digital records, fewer hours lost to paperwork, the ability to update cases on the go, and myriad other benefits. Except that it didn’t. The consultant went out on the beat one day and watched as an officer took out his tablet … and proceeded to use it as a clipboard to lean his paper notebook against while he jotted down his notes with an old-fashioned biro.

It’s just one of many examples that illustrate how the success of transformation depends on people, not just new technology. So what do HR clients—the people in charge of the people—make of the consultants trying to help them?