Editor’s note: Dave Koch is vice president of Adapt Inc., a Minnetonka, Minn., research firm.

Most of us will agree that client expectations are changing very quickly. What was expected of a research supplier in the past is no longer good enough. Everyone wants more. To many suppliers, this simply becomes a drain of valuable time and resources. The end result can often be lower margins and hard feelings toward a client who insists that you use your time to create their PowerPoint slides or help with their travel arrangements.

Are these clients being unreasonable, or are they presenting us with an opportunity? The answer (in some cases) is probably both. But this article will concentrate on the opportunities these new expectations present for growing your business.

Why is so much more expected of a supplier today? There are several reasons. First, everyone is busier. We are all expected to do more and do it faster. The same is true for our clients. They have increased expectations placed on them as well, and some of this simply gets passed on to us. Secondly, in many organizations coordinating outsourced resources is delegated to newer, junior personnel. These new people don’t know any better than to ask their suppliers to do all kinds of little things to make their life easier.

So what can be done about it? Complain? That does no good. Refuse? In today’s competitive environment it will not take your client long to find someone who will meet his or her requirements. Change your business model to increase revenue and profits? That sounds like the best option to me.

Outlined below are several steps you can take to use clients’ changing expectations of the research supplier to your advantage.

1. Identify the new expectations that are most commonly requested. What extra items are your clients asking for most often? Sometimes the easiest way to identify this is by finding the biggest non-billable drain of your time. What are the annoying tasks that you never used to have to perform that now eat up hours of your valuable time on a project?

2. Once you have identified the offending task, find an efficient and cost-effective way to provide the additional service. Usually the best option here is finding someone else to do it. That’s no joke - the time of a highly-trained research professional is very valuable. By comparison, the time of the company receptionist, an intern, or even the ever-abused “new guy” is often much less expensive. The answer may be as simple as purchasing or developing new software, or finding a good outsource vendor that can handle the function. Larger organizations may even consider adding staff to accomplish the task.

3. Now since you have added some cost, you need to turn the service into a billable item. Develop a fair, profitable price for providing this service. When asked to provide the service as an add-on, simply say, “Why yes, our company provides that service for a fee of ____.” In most cases the client will gladly pay. They are not trying to get services for free; they are just trying to save time. If the item is commonly requested, start including it as an optional item on future bids.

4. Now that you are accomplished at providing this new service at a fair price, start promoting it in your literature, turn it into your competitive advantage. If you did an exceptional job in Step 2 (developing an efficient way to deliver the service), you can even include it as a standard service, forcing your competition match your offering or lose market share.

Some examples:

  • A focus group supplier is occasionally asked to suggest a hotel, provide transportation, and entertain visiting clients. How can this be turned to your advantage? Assign a staff member, receptionist, or intern to develop relationships with local hotels at different price levels (perhaps even negotiate discounts). The same thing can be done with car services etc. You could also produce a preprinted list of entertainment options, and provide tickets for events taking place during their visit. The key here is that you do not have the higher-level professional employee wasting their time on these activities.
  • Your client loved your final report. They can’t say enough about the insightfulness of the research you provided. However now it’s time for them to take this information on their own road show within their corporation, and they would like you to develop some special presentation slides for their upcoming dog-and-pony show (your presentation to them “had just looked so professional”). Instead of spending your entire afternoon producing slides for your client, have an administrative assistant in your office trained just for this purpose. Sending them to a couple of PowerPoint classes will probably result in particularly flashy yet professional slides that are beyond even your PowerPoint skills. Remember to bill the client for the time, but the billing rate for the assistant is probably much more affordable for your client than your own.
  • A CATI supplier is asked by their client to do a small mail survey to coincide with and supplement the larger CATI portion of the project. Do you tell the client that they are out of luck, that your expertise is in CATI? Your client could easily decide to take the entire project somewhere else. Instead, develop a relationship with a reputable mail survey supplier. Make sure it is someone you can trust to supply the same level of service and quality as your own organization. Also, if enough of your clients are asking for the service, you may be able to negotiate a price structure (even including your fair mark-up) that’s better than what your client could do on their own.

So now you are ready to turn your clients’ new expectations into a business opportunity. Here are some pitfalls to watch out for.

1. Be sure that you can offer the service in a quality manner. If you begin helping your clients with travel and entertainment options, they had better not end up in a fleabag motel, or in a hired car without air conditioning in the middle of July.

2. Be sure that any outsourcing partners you select to help you provide a service are reliable and can produce high-quality outputs. The client will attribute directly back to you the poor performance of an outsource vendor.

3. Make sure that you are not just adding additional cost. If you are adding a person or expense to supply the additional service, make sure you can bill for it. Or at least that it will give you a worthwhile advantage over your competition.

4. Make sure your client knows that they will be billed for the additional service. Most clients don’t mind paying a fair price for services rendered. But nobody likes surprises that were not expected on the final bill.

In conclusion, most would agree that expectations in the marketplace are changing. But instead of complaining about it, you should see it for what it is: your clients are simply telling you what they need. By finding efficient methods to meet these changing needs, you can turn a drain on your time into an opportunity to grow your business.