When you go to work every day, your thoughts should be about communicating and nurturing relationships with your clients, not the bottom line. While turning a profit is important to everyone, engaging your clients in positive ways will have a much better return on investment. Keep the mindset of a can-do attitude, along with the five rules below, and you will be well on your way.
1. Remember the personal side of business relationships.
When you’re caught up in the hustle and bustle of every day life, it can be tempting to revert to quick email correspondence or a short voice mail. Long-distance clients or a full schedule can make it difficult for those face-to-face meetings. But, if you take the time to get to know your clients – their tastes, hobbies or life events – you can work around those obstacles and make your interactions more human and relatable.
2. Take responsibility for your client’s business.
By understanding and believing in your client’s business, you become invested in their overall success. And in doing so, you become more invested in the service you provide to them. This not only ups your game and builds your credibility with them, but it also brings a level of satisfaction that you were the one to get them there.
3. No surprises about budget or timeline.
It seems so basic, but not everyone is up front with this information. If you hate surprise fees or charges in your own life, think about how that can affect your client’s attitude toward you. Do what you said you’re going to do in the budget and time you promised. If things get out of hand quickly, raise the red flag early and work it out.
4. Prepare, prepare, prepare.
It may seem tedious, but the more you prepare before you visit with your clients, the more receptive they will be to what you’re offering. Some things to think about are: understanding your client’s business, defining the strategic value proposition for the client upfront, clearly describing the benefits to them, addressing your client’s business and process requirements, identifying client’s pain points, recommending viable and feasible solutions, ironing out alignment issues on tactics and metrics used to measure your final performance.
5. Deliver greater value to your client.
Nearly every business out there has a competitor in some shape or form. Keeping your clients from jumping ship and heading over to your competitor’s doorstep comes down to value. What value can you provide that no one else can? If their price or their timeline are better than yours, what can you do to make those extras worth it?
This is by no means a comprehensive end-all, be-all to client engagement. Relationships have to constantly be cultivated and nurtured, but if you stick to these rough guidelines, you will have an edge that others may not.
Synopsis taken from “Top 5 Rules of Client Engagement for Account Managers” by Felicia Popa