Want to have the best relationships with your clients? As your grow your business, it’s important to build solid relationships with your clients. Then these clients will not only keep coming back, but also refer others to you.
Here are 10 tips to help you establish a great working relationship:
1.) Come again? It’s critical to establish right from the beginning how you will handle the communications with your clients. If emailing, what is the standard turnaround time that you respond back to emails. If phoning, what are your hours? Once a client knows when they will hear from you, then they can plan their day and work accordingly.
2.) No surprises. Nothing is worse for a client than to discover four hours before you leave that you are heading out on a week-long vacation. That’s stretching it a bit and you probably wouldn’t do that, but think about other ways you might be surprising your client and not giving them the advance notice they need. Keep in mind that they are probably under pressure too to get their work done. Always give as much advance notice as you can when things will disrupt the business flow.
3.) Where’d she go? For building good client relationships, try not to disappear off the radar screen. Check in with your clients often. When a client writes and they don’t hear back from you for days (or weeks), they fear the worst. Even if you are working on a large project and the deadline is weeks away, email them and let them know “All is going well.” That builds confidence and security.
4.) Oops, where did that come from? We’ve all been there. You get the email from the client saying they found a typo or typos. Ouch. We can’t be perfect, but try and be as close as you can. Proof and reproof your work. Also, if possible, wait until the material is fresh and reread it again. Determine the time when you are at your best, and use that time to do your proofing.
5.) Super size it, please. Always give your clients more than they ask for. You will be rewarded with not only more work, but lots of word of mouth referrals too. And there are so many ways to do it. For example: Set up an Autoresponder for them so they can sell more products; set up Google Alerts under their topic or target audience so you can find websites or blogs that will help them spread their message; help them produce a newsletter or blog; send them more clients or referrals; ask them directly what you can do to better the relationship; and, most important, listen to what they say. It’s so easy to get busy and listen with half an ear, or try and talk too much about your business. Being a good listener is a valuable asset.
About the Author:
Diana Ennen is the author of numerous books including Virtual Assistant - The Series, Become a Highly Successful, Sought After VA and President of Virtual Word Publishing, www.virtualwordpublishing.com
