Building client relationships on a case team
Building client relationships on a case team
A manager reflects on building trust and partnership with a client team
When people think of consulting, they might imagine solving tough business problems. But what often makes the work truly rewarding is the relationships built along the way, when clients start feeling like teammates. Eunjin Cho, a manager in our Seoul office, shares how close collaboration turned one project into a lasting partnership.
We maintained trust through open communication, consistent follow-through, and a genuine focus on what success looked like for the client.
Eunjin
Manager
Can you tell us about the case and what your team did?
Our client was one of Korea’s largest food companies, aiming to accelerate its growth by improving performance across key online channels. Our work focused on how the company could effectively implement strategic initiatives to unlock growth, from prioritizing the most impactful levers to testing and scaling new approaches.
Within the team, I led a workstream responsible for driving execution across major platforms. I worked closely with client stakeholders to pilot ideas, monitor results, and refine our plans. It was a very hands-on process that allowed us to turn strategy into tangible outcomes and see real business impact.
What did day-to-day collaboration with the client look like?
Each day started with a quick team check-in to align on priorities and prepare for key discussions. Every morning, we also ran a daily scrum with more than ten client stakeholders. These short meetings helped us stay aligned and make fast decisions across performance levers.
Later in the day, we would dive into data and benchmarks, review performance, and identify new opportunities to optimize. We’d share those insights in the next day’s scrum, which kept momentum going and made continuous improvement part of our daily rhythm.
What made this case particularly meaningful?
The partnership we built with the client made this case truly special. From day one, our relationship went beyond a traditional consultant–client dynamic: we worked side by side, shared accountability, and celebrated successes together.
A big enabler of this was our shared Teams workspace, where we co-developed materials, shared feedback instantly, and stayed fully aligned even as things moved quickly. Seeing how our joint work translated to real business decisions and measurable results was deeply rewarding; it showed me what true collaboration at Bain looks like.
How did you build such strong trust with the client team?
Eunjin gets dinner with her client team to strengthen relationships outside of work.
This project was an execution engagement, following an earlier strategy project. The trust we built during that first phase gave us a strong foundation. Because we had already co-created the roadmap together, there was a strong sense of partnership and shared ownership from the beginning.
During the execution phase, we maintained that trust through open communication, consistent follow-through, and a genuine focus on what success looked like for the client, not just delivering recommendations but helping them translate plans into real business outcomes.
Over the course of the project, that trust deepened into lasting relationships, culminating in one of my most memorable moments at Bain, when the client team lead personally wrote a handwritten letter to thank our team for our collaboration.
What was a key achievement on this project, and what lessons will you carry forward into future cases?
Working side by side with the client team, we achieved visible top-line impact and co-created a performance dashboard that was quickly adopted company-wide, including C-level executives. That dashboard became a key took for sustaining performance discipline across the organization.
The experience reinforced for me that lasting impact comes from combining trust with tangible results. Going forward, I’ll continue to build authentic relationships by being empathetic and clear, not only to drive alignment, but to empower clients to sustain success over time.
