Brand equals culture

D&I Quarterly Q2/2016

Posted on

3 May

2016

Dittmar & Indrenius > Insight > Brand equals culture
Katja Hollmén, D&I’s Director of Client Relations, in charge of marketing, sales and PR, was also handed a blank slate to work with when Senior Partner Jan Ollila hired her two years ago. ”Do what you need to do. We have complete faith in you. This is an intelligent organisation – challenge us for greatness!”
Hollmén, who joined D&I from the media-sector, admits that it was a culture shock of a kind. “There was this almost fierce ambitiousness for high quality and yet it was a very relaxed group of amazingly intelligent and highly-likeable people. But the thing I fell for was the respect and trust I felt in my heart immediately.”
Like corporate culture, the client experience, too, is made up of encounters, interactions and memories. According to Hollmén, what matters most in client relations is how well the advisor is able to build trust at the front line. D&I’s trust-centric culture was a great foundation for her to rethink the firm’s marketing strategy and D&I’s client journey.

“You’d better have all the ingredients ready at hand before you start preparing the meal of a lifetime for your client.”

Inside the firm, unique employee experience had already been created through fostering team-spirit and trust. “Without that soul, that internal belief, I don’t think it would be possible to successfully build trust in the advisor-client relationship. There can’t really be any inconsistency between internal and external brand, they need to be fully aligned. You’d better have all the ingredients ready at hand before you start preparing the meal of a lifetime for your client”, she says determinedly.

All B2B professional services aim to create superior client experiences in order to build trust-based relationships. “Even in B2B, the origin of trust is in 1-2-1, human-to-human relationship, that is never based on solely technical mastery or a frictionless process detail, say, whether billing was on time or whether there was a feedback session – both important touchpoints on D&I’s client journey. Like high quality, trust is a very holistic experience with several intertwined layers”, Hollmén explains.

Clearly, trust has been established when looking at D&I’s financial figures in 2015 (+30% increase in turnover), 4th position in Mergermarket report on Nordic M&A deals in 2015 (measured by deal value) and the recent “highly commended”, 1st runner-up position in the Lawyer Magazine’s Law Firm of the Year in the Nordics in 2016. “A recent client quote of ours said: ‘Having now worked with them I can say they are quite excellent’. It reflects perfectly what I would like all our clients to feel after working with us: trust”, Hollmén says modestly, yet proudly.

Mirka Palm ja Katja Hollmén
“My role? I’m the battery charger for new creative ideas”, she laughs. “My primary task is to boost and empower this firm and our people to succeed. My team and I do our best to make everyone see the big picture and understand the holy union of marketing, sales activities and the assignments on their table.” Hollmén works closely with Palm and they strive to utilise each other’s knowledge and expertise as much as possible. Simon Sinek has said that customers will never love a company unless the employees love it first. We are big fans of Sinek because he shares our views”, Palm and Hollmén exclaim with a laugh, as they complete each other’s sentences.
Read also our Trust is Paramount article.

Written by

Katja Hollmén

Director, Client Experience & Communications [email protected] +358 50 573 7396

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