Proactive Communication and setting expectations, not just the ones your clients have of you, but the ones that you have for your clients is a critical part of your workday.
As we develop our relationship with our clients, we gain more insight into just how they work. This insight is extremely beneficial to us, as it assists us in developing our service or product to be exactly what they need when they need it. Not only are you able to learn how, what and when your client might need something from you, they to become more reliant on how you work. In some instances, this is beneficial and in others, not so much. For example, if they learn from you that if they drop a big problem in your lap at 4:45 pm on Thursday and you have the answer back to them by 8:00 am Friday, they start to rely on your quickness. This is great and something we all strive to do. The downside to this situation comes when they take your hard work for granted and regardless of the difficulty in the request they make of you, their expectations always remain the same. This is when you need to have a very honest conversation with your clients as to what they can count on from you in various situations. Not every deal is an emergency and not every problem requires an instant response. Collaborating with your clients to determine what the level of priority is on any given situation is particularly crucial step in setting a client’s expectations. You need to keep open lines of communication between yourself and your clients in learning how to deal with the various problems that are bound to arise on occasion.
For me, the way this works is – when I get that call at 4:45pm on Thursday, my first call to action is to reach out to my client and make sure I understand in detail what the issue is and what priority they are placing on it. How else can I possibly meet their timing needs and meet their expectations if this conversation never takes place. The last thing I want to do is to blindly interpret what I believe their needs are. It is much easier to ask and then deliver per their request. This also affords you an opportunity to lay out a game plan for them on how you are going to solve the issue while informing them as to any potential delays this resolution may need. Sometimes the problem needs attention from other parts of your organization. When that is the case, you cannot rely on someone else’s priorities to match yours and this may create an unforeseen delay in the process. The other problem area is not openly communicating with your client about the specific problem when it arises and what your interpretation of the problem is. For example, your client calls you up and states they want to take delivery of your product in the morning but cannot. What would you do? call up your shipping department and determine why they are not getting the product in the morning. You start up the conversation with the shipping department and inform them about your client’s lack of satisfaction about the delivery delays only to find out the delivery delays are a result of your client. Now you are stuck with a situation where the people you count on to perform for your client believe that your client has unreal expectations. You still have no idea why the client contacted you in the first place nor what the real problem they have is. Not a good formula for success.
SO, the real message I want to share with everyone today is that communication needs to be proactive, not reactive, and occur regularly. It is like this: if I do not ask what my client’s needs are, how can I possibly meet them? Would you start a trip to someplace without a map or a plan as to how you were going to get there? Exactly!!!
Please watch for my book coming out in January of 2024. info@michaelhinkle.com