Firms need to remember that their success is dependent on their stakeholders and clients. Attitude is all-important.

Care therefore needs to be taken to ensure that those relationships remain positive and that respect is maintained. Without this, relationships can become strained as clients feel ignored, taken for granted or actually dictated to. Not a good place to be.

Identifying any internal behaviours that have the potential to be reputationally damaging externally is the first step towards ensuring that those essential relationship remain strong. The second step is to find out from your clients what they really think of you. This may lead to some difficult conversations, but will be rewarding in the long term.

This study from EY identifies the key mistakes organisations can make - and how they can be rectified.