Just signed a nice deal with a client. Even nicer because our firm was chosen over a much bigger, more well-known and seemingly better qualified firm. The reason we got the deal is over the past few years the bigger firm has sent a different consultant on a regular basis. There was little stability and no continuity. This was frustrating to the client as they kept getting some junior consultant who didn’t know the specifics of the situation. This is not the only time I have had this conversation with people.

Earlier last year a client of mine retained a national consulting firm (you read about their work every year). In the first several months of the project we worked with three different consultants. Towards the end of the project, as it approached a critical moment, we were assigned another consultant as the third one left the firm. Very frustrating for my client. We almost cancelled the engagement.

In both cases the “reputable” consulting firm was losing people and, in turn, losing clients. I guess if you are big enough you can treat your people, and customers, like that but I don’t think it is a good way to do business. And yes, there are good, large consulting firms out there.

This is where the cost of turnover becomes almost impossible to calculate but we know it is real. Look beyond the cost of the newspaper ad or posting on Monster. Look beyond the cost of training. What is the real cost of losing an employee? Do you even know? Alot of times you will not because the client simply goes away. (hopefully to me!)

This entry was posted on Monday, April 26th, 2010 at 5:34 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.